It’s Launch Day!

Fair warning, this is a lengthy post. If you want to just get to ordering, choose your version! The buttons below will take you to the buy pages.

If you’re ready for more, read on.

It’s Launch Day for my book, Understanding Color! (I’m so excited, I had to use capital letters – Launch. Day. Yep, looks good.)

What started as a kind of crazy idea a couple months ago is now here in ready-to-order form. Here. Done. Visible. And it feels so good, let me tell you.

But I realized that this book was a long time coming. The roots go back further than a couple months, all the way back to the very first color theory lecture I ever had.

It was sophomore year in college. I spent the year before as a film major, slowly going a little crazy because I found out very quickly that film was not my thing. And I had seven more semesters of this? No. Thank. You. So spring semester, and without ever taking a college-level art course, I walked into the Registrar’s office and switched my major to Fine Arts.

It was my first taste of bliss.

I was eager to jump right to the classes I wanted to take (painting), except I was foiled by the prerequisites thing. So, almost exactly one year after I switched majors, I was finally in the painting class I wanted to be in. And it was color theory lecture day! I was so excited, I couldn’t stop grinning.

An hour and a half later, the lecture ended, and I was in danger of falling asleep.

How did that happen? I loved color, that’s the whole reason I was in painting to begin with. Why wasn’t I into color theory? I can’t explain the utter disappointment at this turn of events. This was not what I was expecting to happen. Where were the mysteries revealed, the secrets told? Where was the fun of working with color?

It took me until this year to figure out why it wasn’t working for me (which is an embarrassingly long amount of time to clue in, but I was busy with Life in between, you know?). Here’s what I realized: Traditional color theory is boring.

Yeah, I said it. But that doesn’t mean I can’t or don’t appreciate all of the hard work color theorists and scientists did up to this point in history – I do. Absolutely. Without all of that hard work, I wouldn’t be here doing what I do. But traditional color theory needs a face lift and a new approach, stat.

Enter Understanding Color: Color Theory Made Easy.

What bugged me then and bugs me now is that while the principles aren’t complicated, the language is. My answer to that problem is simple: I use easy-to-understand language to break down and explain said color theory principles.

Ever struggled to learn color theory, either because you had to or wanted to? I feel you, seriously. I had a hard time parsing through the verbiage myself in a classroom setting, so I can only imagine how much harder it is for someone learning on their own.

The traditional texts don’t make it easy… but I do. Here’s what some early readers have to say:

“This is the best color book for digital painters that I have ever seen.”

“WOW! You’ve done an AMAZING job. Seriously.”

“I love color…and how you write about and picture it.”

“After a quick page through, it’s beautiful! This is fantastic.”

“Just wanted to say how much I love your book and how easy it is to read. This is going to be a fantastic resource.”

And that’s coming from artists of all disciplines – jewelry designers, painters, and knitters, to name a few – and of all skill levels – students and established artists.

I’ve taken my color theory posts and reworked, refined, and expanded them. Then I added in new material, new graphics, a few blank templates and guides, and viola! We’ve got a new approach to learning color theory.

Understanding Color clocks in at 84 pages long, and comes in two versions: a digital ebook available as an instant download, and a professionally done, full color print book. You can grab the digital ebook on this page (FAQs are there, too), while the print book is available in my Blurb.com storefront.

I’m so excited to share it with you!

Before I wrap this post up, let me just say Thank You (that deserves capital letters, too). Thank You for the support and the encouragement along the way. Thanks for asking color questions, questions that lead me here. And thanks as always for reading!