Colour Mixing Guide: Oils

Reviews / Votes

Jan 2017



Colour mixing guides tend to fall into the category of either very simple or exhaustingly complicated. This is one of the former. At only 48 pages, there's no room for every possible combination of colours and nuance of tint, but the trade-off is that you won't have to search through pages of almost identical blotches to find what you want. Julie Collins also condenses the apparatus of theory and practice into what we might call packed-lunch size sections. Her look at primary, secondary, tertiary colours is easy to understand and she also deals with warm and cool colours and the importance of tone. The final and main section is a straightforward catalogue of mixes organised by the predominant colour and showing effect of tinting white. * The Artist * Like for any discipline, knowledge and mastery of the tools and materials differentiates the master and novice. This book by Julie Collins can aptly be stated as covering the ABCs of Color Mixing. The first part of the book addresses to a new self starter in oil painting and covers quickly and in simple terms, the concepts of the Color Wheel and prompts the reader to explore the vast combinations of color mixes. The later part of the book ( a good portion of 20 Pages) provides the color pallette for various mixes. This part of the book makes it a quick reference material for people who take to painting now and then, saving them time in recollecting the color mixes needed for arriving at their desired choice. Would recommend this book for its simplicity and for its usage as a good reference material for color mixes. * Thiagarajan PK * I found this colour mixing guide by Julie Collins simple but very informative and explanatory. In the first few chapters she covers all the materials needed. A good thing I found was she only uses 13 colours, which is good for those who would love to paint but are on a budget. In the latter chapters Julie includes a lot of photos of her mixes for reference which I found very useful. Overall a very informative book for the price * Kerry Clifton * Summer 2016



Search Press has added a new title to its colour mixing guides to acoompany Julie Collins' books on acrylics and watercolours. This one focuses on oils. Opening with simple colour theory and colour wheels, the book moves on to look complementary, warm and cool colours, before describing an array of essential colour mixes achievable using Winsor and Newton colours. A book you'll want to keep close to hand and refer to often. * The Leisure Painter *