Colour Mixing Guide: Oils: (Colour Mixing Guides)

A clear, comprehensive guide to colour mixing for the artist using oil paints. It begins with simple colour theory and a colour wheel, with a template provided so that readers can paint their own; a vital step towards understanding colour. There is vividly illustrated guidance on complementary, warm and cool colours, colour tone, using a limited palette, dull and bright colours and factoring in local colour. There follows an array of essential colour mixes using widely available Winsor & Newton colours. A beautifully presented and practical guide to understanding and mixing colours.

Table of Contents:
Introduction 4 Materials 6 Colours used in this book 8 Colour 10 Colour wheel 10 Primary colours 12 Secondary colours 14 Tertiary colours 15 Complementary colours 16 Warm and cool colors 18 Colour tone 20 Using a limited palette 22 Dull and bright colours 26 Local colour 27 Colour mixes 28 Yellows and oranges 28 Reds and pinks 32 Violets and blues 36 Greens 40 Browns 44 Blacks and greys 46 Glossary 48

About the Author :
Julie Collins studied Fine Art at the University of Reading and has been an artist, writer and teacher since then. She has written colour mixing and artist's problem solving books and writes for The Artist magazine. She works from her studio in Farnham, Surrey, where she explores her passion for painting, drawing and crafts.

Review :
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. 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.  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 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.