My favourite books about colour!

I love books! I’d have a whole library in my house if I could. I thought it might be nice to show you which books I’ve found most useful in my colour education journey. I’ll start with my newest purchase which quickly became my favourite book.

1. Mixed Media Colour Studio by Kelly Wynne Conrad.

Mixed media color studio by Kelly Lynne Conrad, published by Quarry books in 2021.

Modern colour theory

It was this book that introduced me to the term ‘modern colour theory’. The use of Process or Primary Yellow, Magenta and Cyan to easily create a wide range of beautiful colours.

It was also this books that really showed me the use of spending time playing with colours in order to create your own unique palette.

I haven’t done any of the exercises yet from this book as I got carried away with the initial colour palette playing but it’s full of really nice, well thought out workshops to try.

2. Exploring Color Workshop by Nita Leland

Exploring Color Workshop by Nita Leland, published by North Light Books 2016.

This is a very in-depth book which has every piece of information about colour and practical ways to use it in your art that you could possibly need.

What I like about this books is that it uses the names of colours you find on the tubes of paint, making it much more handy for practising artists.

It really goes into a lot of depth but in a very easy to read and visual way.

This is definitely the sort of book to have as a reference guide.

There is even a ASTM colour index guide at the back of the book which if you are interested in the pigments and properties of the colours is really handy.

3. Colour mixing guides

I’m grouping the next 3 books in the same category, which are colour mixing guides, the ones that are full of swatches and recipes for how they are made. Truth be told, I bought these books ages ago and they have mainly been sat on my shelf unused. However, I think the are worth mentioning as they can be useful if you find yourself really struggling to mix a particular colour as they are essentially recipe books of paint.

The 3 I have are:

Color mixing recipes for landscapes
Color mixing recipes for portraits
Colour Mixing Guide Watercolour

I bought these books when I wasn’t feeling very confident about colour mixing. They are a great starting point but I have found that the more I allow myself to just play with colour the more confident I am getting and colour mixing is becoming more intuitive and there is less need for books like these.

4. Design Elements: Color Fundamentals by Paris Sherin

Slight curve ball with this one! This is from when I was first starting out as a graphic designer. Having trained in Illustration I did a lot of self teaching (back before online courses took off!). This was one book that I have kept from that part of my life as it’s full of really useful colour theory but also talks a lot about harmonies and how to use colour to make your work really stand out.

Do you have any book recomendations?

Like I said I’m a book nut and the above is a very small selection of my collection. I’d love to know if you have any books that you find really useful.

Thanks for reading. xx