Keys to Painting

Bringing together leading artists and teachers, working in a variety of painting and drawing mediums, this volume shows how you can use colour and tonal value to bring your own paintings to life.

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Keys to Painting: Colour and Value demonstrates how a sound understanding of tone and colour can enhance your paintings. The tonal values of a painting (how light or dark the different elements are) is a major factor in creating realistic-looking representations. Tone leads naturally on to colour. Colour theory is not an abstract concept to be studied in school and then forgotten: there are some very simple colour guidelines that all artists can use to improve their work. Once you've grasped the basic principles, you're ready to move on to using tone and colour more creatively. The final chapter shows how you can exploit tone and colour to create particular moods and effects in your work - reducing the tonal range when painting mist, for example, or including a full range of tones in a scene that contains foreground, middle ground and background. An inspiring mix of step-by-step demonstrations and finished works, this book brings together leading artists and teachers, working in a variety of drawing and painting mediums, to help you bring your paintings to life.