Colour Demystified

Julie Collins studied Fine Art at the University of Reading and has been an artist, writer and teacher since then. She has written a number of colour mixing guides and artists' problem-solving books and also writes for The Artist magazine. She works from her studio in Hampshire, UK, where she explores her passion for painting, drawing and crafts.Julie has won numerous prestigious awards for her watercolour paintings, including, most recently, the award of first prize for Watercolour at the Royal West of England Academy Annual Exhibition 2019. Julie was also elected an associate Member of the Society of Women Artists in August 2019. Julie is the author of the Colour Mixing Guides in Acrylics, Oils and Watercolour, published by Search Press.

• Introduction 6Materials 8The language of colour 14Pigments Demystified 38Tone & Value 58Step-by-step project: Leaf 66Palettes 72Step-by-step project: Carte Postale Birds 86The interaction of colour 98Step-by-step project: Christmas Cactus 104Modifying your Colours 112Step-by-step project: Daina’s Teapot 120Glazing 126Step-by-step project: Still Life with Tulips 132Mineral pigments & Luminescent watercolours 136Step-by-step project: Inside, Outside 144Experimentation & inspiration 148Step-by-step project: Trees and Birds 154Glossary 158Index 160

Non-professional artistic color education starts and stops with the color wheel, primary and secondary hues, and complementary and analogous colors. Award-winning UK watercolorist Collins (Painting Flowers with Impact in Watercolour, 2005) changes the conversation by delving into all the different ways hues, shades, and tones can play together. She explores topics like palettes, interactions, and glazing in detail with the intention of inspiring new thinking and experimentation, and furthers her cause with several different gallery-type examples, 16 worksheets that showcase techniques (painting a freehand tulip, for example), and seven step-by-step projects—still life with tulips, carte postale birds, even just one leaf. To amplify the book’s title, she includes "demystifying” sidebars, observations, and recommendations that strengthen the artistic process, such as “the look of yellow differs in the center of green and red versus orange and green.” A book with an aesthetic sensibility that more than lives up to the title. Includes a glossary.