A Book About Color: A Clear and Simple Guide for Young Artists - Hardcover

Gonyea, Mark

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 080509055X ISBN 13: 9780805090550

Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR), 2010

Synopsis

Beginning with the six houses on Color Street―red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple―and concluding with the introduction of the color wheel, in this follow-up to A Book About Design Mark Gonyea explains how artists visualize and choose colors. A Book about Color uses simple building blocks of color, shape, and design to introduce young artists to the world of color theory.
A Book About Color is a 2011 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.

About this title

About the Author

Mark Gonyea was born in upstate New York and spent the majority of his childhood consuming cartoons, video games, and monster movies. He lives in Vermont.

Reviews

Grade 1–5—"Welcome to the Neighborhood" begins this introduction to color theory. Information is divided into seven short chapters, beginning on Color Street where six houses shaped like upward-pointing arrows pop out against a black-and-white background. Primary colors are introduced, and the resulting secondary colors are explained in white text on bright solid-colored pages. Next, monochromatic illustrations accompany simple ideas associated with each color ("Blue is calm. Blue is wet."). Properties such as warmth, saturation, and value are presented with clarity. Finally, the houses on Color Street turn to form the familiar shape of a color wheel, bringing this explanation full circle. While books ranging from Kathleen Westray's A Color Sampler (Houghton, 1993) to Etienne Delessert's Full Color (Creative Editions, 2008) cover similar material, there is still something uniquely appealing about Gonyea's treatment that makes this introduction to color a primary selection.—Lisa Glasscock, Columbine Public Library, Littleton, CO
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Gonyea, the author of A Book about Design: Complicated Doesn’t Make It Good (2005) and Another Book about Design: Complicated Doesn’t Make It Bad (2007), returns to the familiar square format to introduce color theory. Topics presented include primary and secondary colors, warm and cool colors, saturation, and the addition of black and white. In the digital illustrations, simple forms in solid colors stand out sharply against white or other solid-color backgrounds. Though usually short, pithy, and conversational, the text is occasionally ambiguous. Complementary colors are said to “work well together,” while (a few pages later) analogous colors are also said to “work well together,” with little distinction made between the very different ways that these color combinations interact. Although visual rather than verbal content is the selling point here, this attractive volume offers plenty to observe, ponder, and discuss. Classroom teachers and art specialists will find the book a good entry point for discussing basic ideas about colors. Grades 2-5. --Carolyn Phelan

Edition details

• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 080509055X
• ISBN 13: 9780805090550
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Gonyea Mark
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 96