Reddit reviews The Elements of Color: A Treatise on the Color System of Johannes Itten Based on His Book the Art of Color
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The most useful thing I learned about colour was written in "The Elements of Color" by Johannes Itten (page 45).
In the book he wrote that a study was conducted to try to work out whether colour has any physical effect on a person.
It was found that in a room painted entirely blue-green, the occupants felt that 59 degrees F was cold, and in a room that was painted entirely red-orange, they did not feel the cold until 52-54 degrees F.
This means that blue-green slows down the circulation, and red-orange speeds it up.
As a designer we can use these physical effects to our benefit - use red-orange (or colours in that range) if you want to stimulate your user, and blue-green (or colours in their range) if you want to relax them.
Read all of these culture based meanings with a pinch of salt, but go look at the science of it and use it to your advantage.
Working cools vs warms is a little complicated. I recommend buying some painting books and color theory books to really know what I'm talking about. Basically decide what is going to be the structure of your painting, value or warm/cool shifts. So lets say you decide value (basically you'll find a lot if values, strong darks and lights). Warm/ cool shifts in this context could mean: most of the shadows will feel cooler than the lights (or vise versa). The way you mix that would be: shadows made of violets, greens, blues + a slight neutralizer (the opposite color) or a shade like black, or grey and the lights with bright versions or the hue shifted to things like red, yellows, oranges. (Know that context determines whether a color feels warm or cool. blue can be warm if surrounded by certain neutrals etc etc) However, instead of painting the shadow of on an arm brown, paint it violet. Warm cool shifts work best when there is little value. So if the shadow is Waaaaay darker than the highlight, don't push the violet too much. But let's say you decided to have little value in a painting and wanted space to be formed through warm/cools then make the highlights from red tints and the shadow from violet with no change or little change in value. You see this type of painting Impressionism to contemporary work and prior to Impressionism most painting is value based (due to pigments and the color theories of the time). Extreme values make an easy read for a work, while warm/cools play tricks on the eye and are visually unstable, which makes a painting visually develop over time (stand in front of some Rothko works and you'll know what I mean). It really depends on what you're going for. Also paint from life. Photos flatten things out tremendously and you'll see a lot more color and dimension from actual observation.
Color theory book I recommend: The Elements of Color:
http://amzn.com/0471289299
http://amzn.com/0300018460
http://amzn.com/0300115954
Painting technique book I also recommend:
Portrait Painting Atelier: Old Master Techniques and Contemporary Applications
http://amzn.com/082309927X
Sorry I'm on mobile and 3:30am so I am a but too exhausted to make those clickable. I look forward to seeing more of your paintings :)
A Cezanne portrait where his colors in the face do what I'm talking about (using color to make planar shifts or space) http://www.canvasreplicas.com/images/Paul%20Cezanne%20Self%20Portrait.jpg
A Degas based on warm cool shifts: http://uploads3.wikipaintings.org/images/edgar-degas/the-pink-dancers-before-the-ballet-1884.jpg
I find a lot of wedding photography books out right now are already outdated.
Some of the books that HAVE helped me throughout the years are books on websites, business, colour theory and most photography books on posing and lighting, regardless of the year it was printed. Also, creative live is an awesome educational source too!
What I value is books on lighting and posing... I find this information doesn't really go out of style. A lot of people forget about classical posing and just do their thing, which is great for a lot of clients that are comfortable in front of the camera, but sometimes more traditional posing is required. I rented a few older books on posing from the library and was surprised how much I learned from them.
Also, check out your local or provincial business office, I got a bunch of booklets and information on starting a photography business from them.
The following are some I can think of off the top of my head:
Business and legal forms for photographers
Wedding Mind Tricks by Ken Luallen
Colour Theory by Itten
As a guy who went to art school...check out this book:
The Elements of Color
yeah, the ye olde Itten.
But don't mistake print color for web color, or vice versa. If someone knows an equally seminal source for OP on web color, it would be a good counterbalance.
There are a number of color theory books out there but I'm not sure that will answer all of your questions. I have a copy of The Elements of Color that I reference often. The thing is, there isn't really one solid formula for mixing paint. It mostly comes through practice and understanding the physics of color and how colors shift in tone, saturation, and hue. There is some really good advice in this post already. I have a few other sources you might be interested in.
Wet Canvas has some great forums for people like us who need help with this kind of stuff from time to time.
The Dimensions of Color has a very thorough breakdown of color. It is extensive and a harder read than maybe you are used to. Take it slow. Read it a few times. Refer to it often.
Color and Light by James Gurney is a great resource as well. Be warned, that it isn't necessarily a "how-to" but it will give you insight into how a professional artist goes about his work. He provides insight on techniques and palettes and things like that as well as phenomena seen in nature.
Take a look at those. Best of luck.