Cover Image: 1,500 Color Mixing Recipes for Oil, Acrylic & Watercolor

1,500 Color Mixing Recipes for Oil, Acrylic & Watercolor

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A good resource for the artist and great to see good size colour samples of each mix. However it would benefit from some updating with regard to colour alternatives from different brands, as different brands of paint have different names and formulations.

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Let color abound
William F. Powell was an internationally recognized artist and colorist. His book "1,500 Color Mixing Recipes for Oil, Acrylic & Watercolor. Achieve precise color when painting landscapes, portraits, still lives, and more" was already published in 2012. It is the combination of other books authored by him: "Color Mixing Recipes for Oil & Acrylic...," "Color Mixing Recipes for Portraits...", "Color Mixing for Landscapes...", and "Color Mixing Recipes for Watercolor...", all published by Quarto Publishing Group – Walter Foster.
Powell states: "In this helpful guide, you will learn how to mix more than 1,500 paint colors across a variety of media and subject matter For the best results, please read through the next four pages of information and instructions carefully" (p. 4). After the introduction and color theory he presents four chapters that deal with color mixing (oil & acrylic, watercolor, portraits, and landscapes), three chapters with color indexes (for oil, acrylic, and watercolor, for portraits, and for landscapes and an oil/acrylic conversion chart. The color mixing segments of the book contain information about color recipes, value recipes, and graying with complements (for oils & acrylic) / intensity recipes (for watercolors) / specific information for portraits (mouth, ear, nose, eyes) and landscapes (skies, clouds, trees, mountains). The color index that is included in the end of the book is a great help to find the color one wants to paint. There are actually three indexes: one for oil, acrylic, and watercolor, a second one for portraits, and a third one for landscapes. The book also includes a reusable color mixing grid for oil and acrylic as well as one for watercolor are included at the end of the book. It would be helpful if the grids could be downloaded so that artists could print them on various papers for easier reference for their own color mixes. One also has to note that there are not 1,500 paint colors for every medium but that this number is a total for the three media being used. Nevertheless, I highly recommend this book for artists who want to paint with one or more of the mentioned media as well as for mixed-media artists.
The complimentary copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley free of charge. I was under no obligation to offer a positive review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
#1500ColorMixingRecipesforOilAcrylicWatercolor #NetGalley

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1,500 Color Mixing Recipes for Oil, Acrylic & Watercolor is a tutorial guide with recipes for palette mixing by William F. Powell. Originally released in 2012 this reformat and re-release is due out 15th June 2021 from Quarto on their Walter Foster imprint. It's 176 pages and will be available in paperback format.

This is a no-nonsense bare bones mixing guide for oil, acrylic, and watercolor media. The mixing diagrams are specific and useful. The charts are arranged according to medium and color and contain specific values and ranges for 1500 colors from the base colors for each medium (Burnt sienna, Burnt umber, Cadmium orange, Cadmium red light, Cadmium yellow, etc). They are grouped together in their own chapters and aren't confusing to keep separate. The color blends are -not- specified by brand of pigment.

The author has also included an overall tutorial on watercolor mixing specifically for portraiture with a good overview over values and tones for skin colors across a wide range of skins.There is also a tutorial on color theory, an appendix. with a legend/index for typical mixes for things such as trees, sunset sky, stormy sky, etc.

This is a very useful book. It would make a good reference for maker's spaces, studios, library acquisition, or the home studio. It's worth noting however that the content for the -other- re-releases in the same series from the same publisher contains a large overlap with the content here. If only one volume is to be purchased, it should be this one.

Four stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

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Every artist should have at least one color mixing book. I have three of William Powell’s color mixing books. His are all very useful and I like his color mixing chart to measure out your paints. I have a print copy and electronic copy of 1500 color recipes. Some of the color swatches are different when you compare the book to the electronic version.

I would recommend 1500 color mixing recipes over the one for portraits and the one that is just oil and acrylic. The reason is there is so much more information in 1500. Not just the watercolor recipes, 1500 includes landscape recipes. I was surprised to find that it included all of the information from the portrait color mixing book.

I highly recommend William Powell’s 1500 color mixing recipes for oil, acrylic, and watercolor.

I received this galley from NetGalley.

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This book provides colour mixing recipes for use in a variety of mediums (oil, acrylic, watercolour).

It explains how much paint you will need, and provides a mixing grid for you to use. It also shows how a colour changes with the addition of white, water or blacks.

The book is like going to B&Q and looking at their colour swatch cards, telling you the paints and their quantities required to achieve the same colour. If doing portraits, the book includes a chapter on skin, lips, eye colours for you to get the correct shading along with tips on how to paint the warm and cool areas of the body parts. Similarly for landscapes, the book contains mixes for clouds, sky, trees and mountains. If you know the object you wish to paint, say beaver fur, there is an index at the rear of the book that provides the recipe number that is most suitable for your painting.

this is a thoroughly excellent book on those who wish to get the correct colour without having to guess at the quantities required to get the mix correct.

I received this book from Netgalley in return for a honest review.

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A revised edition of a popular volume by William F. Powell. Amateur and professional artists will find the charts and recipes extremely helpful, both for mixing precise shades, and for inspiration. A useful reference volume with some tips for using the most accurate colors for everything from eyes to landscapes.

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A great tool for an artist for colour combinations in general, landscape and portraits. very organized

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Color mixing can be challenging and this book will guide you but it also contains a lot of information to process. I don't believe this book is made for beginners. I mainly wanted to learn information for watercolor paints but the book will provide information for oil and acrylic as well. The book is mainly used as a reference and guide to color mixing.
Thank you for an eARC from NetGalley for the purposes of writing this review.

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I received an eARC from NetGalley for the purposes of writing this review.

I have a lot of artists in my family which is what led me to this book initially. A lot of the benefit of working with traditional materials, especially paint, is the fact that you can create almost any color even if it doesn’t come in a tube.

This book is a fantastic reference for artists who want to understand how to create the color they’re looking for. It’s especially helpful in that it provides information for oil, acrylic, and watercolor paints. It also has sections dedicate to specific uses - such as for painting landscapes, skin tones, and hair.

I could see this book being a great birthday or holiday present for an artist. It’s not a book you read straight through to learn how to paint or to learn color theory - rather, the author lets the reader sort that out on their own time and use this book as it’s intended: as a reference and guide to color mixing.

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Loved this book it has so many helpful mixing tips. There are very detailed color grids on how to mix colors to achieve a huge variety of applications. This book is perfect for anyone wanting to truly customize paint colors,. Any artist who is new to color or would like to mix colors will find this book a phenomenal resource.

I received this book from NetGalley for an honest review.

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Color mixing is a very difficult task for a realist painter, as the paints as they come out of the tube are rarely those that we find in nature. This volume contains tremendous amount of information and makes this difficult task much more easier saving precious time.
You search up a subject, and identify its colors (dark medium and light tones) with the number assigned, under the colors you find the recipes that show how many parts or what percent you need of the basic colors.
There are recipes for portraits and landscapes, for oil, acrylic and watercolor paints, also basic color theory notices.
Really very useful.

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This is the best guide for colour-mixing that I've ever seen! The recipes are precise and well-organized, and have so many different options. Making the correct colour is always tricky, and this is the perfect guide for getting the right colour every time, for every project!

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I am painfully aware that one of my weaknesses in painting is mixing colors. So glad therefore to have had a look at this book. I tried a few of the watercolor recipes and it looked pretty good even though I did not have all the exact colors. I liked how you can look in the index for something you want to paint and then refer to the recipe numbers for the colors you need to mix.

With more practice and a more complete set of the recommended colours, surely my color mixing will improve! I use watercolor and acrylic paint so this volume will really come in handy. Looking forward to buying a copy for my library!

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I read this ARC for an honest review
All thoughts and opinions are mine

I really enjoyed this
Loads of ideas of different medium

Disappointed I could only see this on my phone in the netgalley app so only on a very small screen
I would have loved to have seen it in kindle form so I could look at in a bigger format which would have increased my enjoyment of it - I would have given more stars with an improved viewing

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