Color for Painters: A Guide to Traditions and Practice

Beautiful book with very helpful advice on color theory, and that also covers a wide range of topics too.

As an instructor with students forever searching for the one answer to all their color problems, and attracted by one of the most promising covers in the current glut of "how to" books, I thought I would give this one a try. No magic answer here, only the same basic information readily available in many other publications rearranged to appear fresh and new. This is not a bad thing when so many examples of fine art paintings are used with less reliance on work by the author and what appear to be friends or students: the later contingent a little uncomfortable with real art, their examples and demonstrations of various degrees of knowledge and talent giving an over all feeling of "the best in art school". Still, it is a handsome book with a reliable source of basic informationwell presented with fewer truly bad paintings than most. The searching student could do a lot worse.

As a painter I have a particular interest in color and the pigments. I have done a fair amount of research into the history of the original pigments and current compounds. Gury's book gives a very readable overview of the history with practical notes on current paint pigments. He also adds information that those not familiar with classical masters painting techniques would find helpful. There have been comments that Gury's own paintings are somewhat disappointing. I suspect that he is a better teacher than a painter, but find his own examples to be quite good for what he is illustrating. His inclusion of other artists works are lovely and appropriate.I found this book to be even better than his earlier "Alla Prima."

This book is actually a well written, nicely illustrated text book on color, color theory, technique and the history of it all. Very thorough. If you are wanting one of the candy-coated books with just step by step technique instruction, this is not the book for you. If you want a book that touches on that but also gives you a master class in all things color, this is a must have publication.

I have read Al Gury 's "Color for Painters:A Guide to Traditions and Practice".It is an erudite and eloquent exploration of the discipline of color. Mr. Gury's unique talents as a painter,writer and educator combine to give us a rare synergy to approach color.He begins with the history of color in the western tradition,then explores the properties of pigments and materials,reviews the approaches to the subject from tonal up through the modern psychological,and ,all this is supported by exercises ,demonstrations and beautifully reproduced paintings.This is a wonderful approach to begin to "tame the beast" of color.

A comprehensive and beautifully illustrated guide of the use of color in painting that would be helpful to both beginning and more advanced painters. Gorgeous color examples are found on most pages and Mr. Gury's long history of teaching comes through in his well written and concise explanations. The book explores the technical aspects of paint and materials and traces the use of color in painting from the classical era to the present. It includes exercises to help the reader improve their understanding of color. Would be a fabulous text for any course on color.

The information and illustrations are helpful in my work as a textiles artist.

Excellent. Gury is not only a fine painter, he is a teacher and a scholar.I enjoyed this book cover to cover, and now I look forward to reading Gury's other book, on Alla Prima paiting.Gury's explanation of layering paint, from imprimatura to underpainting to opaque layers to glazing, is the clearest I have read.A beautiful selection of paintings illustrates and demonstrates various topics.By the way, this is about oil painting, nothing about acrylics or watercolors.

This publisher has produced many great books on art and painting but this one is nothing special. It looks like a nice book, with a nice cover and many nice images inside, but I found the text to be a bit disappointing. I have read several books on colour recently and I would rate most (all?) of them higher than this book. In my opinion, the text is a bit lazy. It's all style over substance. The book tries to cover so much that inevitably everything is dealt with all too briefly.

Al Gury writes in a way to educate the novice artist AND deepen understanding in a more experienced artist. The book is above average for a "how-to" art book. It's sample artworks are top notch and it includes some great exercises to help you grasp the concepts—after all, you can't get better at art by just reding about it.