My new book Colour – A Practical Approach has been published. When you click on the link you will be able to see a preview. It’s the culmination of a year’s work. The idea originated from a request from one of my Studio classes for more intensive colour studies, particularly on mixing colour.
The book is designed to be a practical aid to mixing colour for the painter. Doing the exercises in a dedicated colour sketchbook will provide you with a permanent personal colour resource. There are 20 colour exercises to do; examples of many different colour wheels; limited palettes and over 80 illustrations.
Colour – A Practical Approach is available from Blurb in the following options:
Ebook Available for Amazon Kindle Fire®, Apple iPad®, Android devices, and Mac or PC computers
SOFTCOVER – 8″ x 10″ flexible, high-gloss laminated cover
HARDCOVER, IMAGEWRAP – 8″ x 10″ – cover design is printed on the cover.
Writing the book
I began by making notes; collating information that had been used during colour workshops held over the last few years. These notes took shape and became quite extensive. When I realised that text with no illustrations would not be very effective, it was a logical decision to write a book instead.
Previously, I had taken an online course, By Design, with the artist and teacher, Roz Stendhal. The course covered the fundamentals of page layout and design for working with both handmade and digital pages, so I was ready to try writing my book.
At the time I had had a brief foray into working with Adobe’s InDesign.since I wasn’t working with it regularly enough, it soon proved to be a stretch to learn the programme. Then I discovered that Blurb, a self-publishing company with a very good reputation, offer Bookwright software obtainable as a free download. It was the solution to my problems. The software is easy to use, offers hints and tips like “the resolution of this image is too low – reduce the size or replace” There are numerous set formats to use. Alternatively, one can self-design each page. There are different types of books – Photo books, TradeBooks and Magazines, each with a different focus and price point. After watching a webinar on the TradeBook would be the best option for me. It would provide a good format, 8” x 10”, and could be printed at an affordable cost. In addition, and eBook could be published using the same format text and illustrations. This would be an easy and good value option for anyone anywhere in the world.
I was excited to see how the book would look, to check the paper quality and the colour accuracy of the photographs so I ordered a single copy. Once I had the book in my hands, I realised that there needed to be more – more detailed information, more chapters, and more colour exercises. There were also a few layout issues with the eBook which needed to be corrected.
So, it was back to the writing desk.
Fast forward a year after the first draft, the new, updated, extended, and largely re-written book has been published.
