600 Watercolor Mixes: Washes, Color Recipes and Techniques

by Sharon Finmark

Master mixing and using colorAn easy-to-use reference for watercolor painters of all levels, 600 Watercolor Mixes shares all the keys to expert color mixing and how to enhance your work with vivacious shades and tints.Beginning with comprehensive charts demonstrating the nuances of each color pairing, 600 Watercolor Mixes offers thorough color swatches of expected results when using different color mixing techniques like palette mixing, wet-into-wet, and overlaying. Plus, you€™ll get the basics on color theory and concepts, including saturation and value. Next, you€™ll learn about advanced color mixing, such as creating grays and neutrals. With Sharon Finmark€™s expert guidance, you€™ll discover how to get the precise depth of color needed.600 Watercolor Mixes illustrates how colors can be used to enhance a painting€”to create spatial effects, add contrast, and make shadows. Filled with watercolor illustrations and e

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Reference

176 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 2011

Reviews

[Narayan Patil · Rating 5 out of 5]

My reld

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short, but a great reference for new watercolor artists who wish to learn how to mix as many colors as they will ever need with a minimum number of paints, and how to avoid dull, muddy colors. Also demonstrates effective color palettes with watercolor artwork. A great book to have in your library if you want to learn watercolor!

[Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars
This is a very useful colour mixing and watercolour reference book which I would recommend for the beginner to intermediate artist.

It begins with a very clear and easy to understand lessons in colour theory with many visual examples of each lesson.

Sometimes art reference books can become overwhelming for the beginner, due to the technical phrases and data given but I didn't find that in this book. It clearly and concisely demonstrates the fundamentals needed to bring life and movement to a watercolour painting with easy to follow instructions.

The anatomy of a painting is discussed as well as the things to consider when beginning a painting, including how to start, what you need to consider before you start, what mood you would like to convey, how to bring light and shadow into your work, and how to make a focal point in your painting with contrast, intensity and colour.

Example paintings shown with explanations of why and how the colours are used as well as what colour mixes are used. Also throughout the book are hyperlinks to the illustrations that are discussed in the text which I found very useful.

I have a copy of the ebook version and could only view one page at a time and would have found it more helpful if I could view a double page as you would with a hardcopy but, that may just be my ereader.

Overall a book that I will refer to regularly not just for my watercolour painting, and one that I will be recommending to my art society for anyone interested in a versatile reference book on colour theory and the anatomy of a painting in relation to colour mixing.

copy kindly provided by Netgalley and the publisher

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am an artist who loves to draw and paint, but I havent used watercolor paints in a decade. I got excited when I saw this title because I wanted to brush up on details of the watercolor medium. I was certainly not disappointed. Not only does it talk about the many varieties of color you get from watercolor, but it also talks about overlaying and techniques you can use to paint certain foliage and landscapes. While I didnt need a lesson in color, this book was still helpful for mixing, overlaying and shading; techniques that are much different in watercolor than other paint mediums. I believe this book can be useful to novice artists up to experts if only to review a few traits of the paint. Watercolor is definitely a differnt animal, but it is so much fun when you get the hang of it. This book is a very fun and useful read. I recommend this to anyone with the slightest curiosity of watercolor. You wont be disappointed.

[Nick Turner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Art of watercolour painting tutorial. Illustrated with colour water paintings - scenes showing what you can do and artful basic examples. Simple explanations of painting terms (you will need to practise to master the techniques) going into detail (with discreet hypertext references) for selected terms e.g. high/low key colour.
Includes practical working tips but there aren't any photographs to compare with the paintings.

A text explanation on one page and the corresponding illustration on the next page works well if you can view a double-page display e.g. on a widescreen tablet. But it's inconvenient on single-page e-readers.

The advance review copy, for a new e-book edition, from the publisher was offered as PDF or a Kindle e-book. Unfortunately, the e-book was too large to transfer via Kindle e-mail (the only means available). I was unable to evaluate the work on an e-reader.

[Becky Soledad · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an awesome book for color theory and for watercolor professionals and enthusiasts. It's a bit dry to read straight through on an e-reader or i-pad but I highly recommend purchasing and having a hard copy around to skim through and mark up as needed. I will be looking for my own hard copy the next time I'm at the book store.

[Jun Nguyễn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not as good as expected. Most examples were somewhat clumsy and too loose. Her glazing technique didn't work for me either, I felt like she was trying to create a mess than painting a piece of art. And while calling itself a book for managing colors, some paintings had too many hues on them. Two stars was marked for introducing Permanent Rose and Payne's Grey, my new favorites though.

[Larissa Mackenzie bengtson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such a lovely book! I think it's a must read for artists and colorphiles alike. Please read my full review here: http://bestbookreviewblog.blogspot.com