Color Mixing Recipes for Portraits: More than 500 Color Combinations for Skin, Eyes, Lips & Hair

by William F. Powell

Color Mixing Recipes for Portraits features master mixes for an array of skin colors in oil, acrylic, and watercolor—plus recipes for hair, eye, and lip colors. The concealed wire-o bound book also includes a plastic color-mixing grid for measuring out paints, as well as a handy conversion chart for finding acrylic equivalents of oil paints and vice versa. With recipes for more than 500 color combinations, this comprehensive guide is your ultimate source for painting realistic skin, mouths, ears, noses, eyes, and hair.

This convenient guide details three simple steps to mix virtually any skin tone : Also With recipes for more than 500 color combinations ,  Color Mixing Recipes for Portraits is your ultimate source for painting realistic skin, mouths, ears, noses, eyes, and hair.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Reference, Design

48 pages, Spiral-bound

First published November 1, 2006

About the author

William F. Powell is an internationally recognized artist recognized as one of America's foremost colorists. He has written and illustrated more than 30 instructional art books.

Reviews

[Danielle The Book Huntress · Rating 4 out of 5]

A friend in my painting class recommended this book to me, and I'm glad he did. This is a good primer for how to mix paints for portraits, including skin, eyes and hair. It has different ethnic types and shades. It's a good start. You would have to play around and see if it works for what you want. I like how it illustrates how to describe shadows on the face. This is an area I need improvement on, but I am learning. I will pull this out when I want to get a good starting point for a new painting. This is a good and inexpensive addition to a painter's library.

[Jacqueline · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not a book to read through, it is a reference book for mixing colors for artist. It has it's drawbacks as some of the colors mentioned are not always the colors the artist owns. It would be nice if it included substitute colors.

[Mechthild · Rating 4 out of 5]

Need help coloring portraits?
William F. Powell was an internationally recognized artist and colorist. His book "Color Mixing Recipes for Portraits. More than 500 Color Combinations for Skin, Eyes, Lips & Hair" published by Quarto Publishing Group – Walter Foster was published for the first time in 2006.
In the first part of this book Powell presents skin tone palettes, the color theory (here he includes also the Facial Planes), the various tones for mouth, ear, nose, eyes, and hair as well as the skin tone recipes for Oil and Acrylic. In the second part he presents the skin tone recipes for watercolors but he did not include the watercolor tones for mouth, ear, nose, eyes, and hair. There is also a short segment for creating color which can be a help for artists to create their own master recipes for skin tones and to help them to adjust also the value recipes. The book also includes and index, an oil/acrylic conversion chart, and a reusable color mixing grid for oil and acrylic included at the end of the book. Sadly there is no color mixing grid for watercolors and it would be helpful if the grids could be downloaded so that artists could print them on various papers for easier reference of their own mixing.
The book is presented with a great design and helpful illustrations. It includes a list of the paint colors which are needed in order that artists can mix the various skin colors. I recommend the book for intermediate and advanced artists, no matter if they use oil, acrylics, or watercolor, and I recommend it also for mixed media artists, mainly for all those artists who want to learn and improve their oil or acrylic mixing skills as well as those who want to learn or improve their skills in mixing skin tones in those mediums.
It is important to note that it seems that this book is a part of William F. Powell's book "1,500 Color Mixing Recipes for Oil, Acrylic & Watercolor."
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.
#ColorMixingRecipesForPortraits #NetGalley

[Annie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally posted on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

Color Mixing Recipes for Portraits is a tutorial color theory guide with mixing recipes specifically for portraiture. Originally released in 2006 this reformat and re-release is due out 22nd June 2021 from Quarto on their Walter Foster imprint. It's 48 pages and will be available in paperback format.

This short book includes recipes for palettes for oil, acrylic, and watercolor and based on a wide variety of skin tones. The format is the same throughout: "master" recipes of a particular skin tone are followed by tonal variations and shadings based on parts of the main color in combination with blending colors. The blends are specific with regard to generic colors such as alizarin crimson, burnt sienna, burnt umber, white, etc.

The recipes included in the volume cover skin, eyes, lips, and hair. Additionally it includes a very short intro to color theory and mixing. The book also includes an abbreviated index as well as a color conversion chart for oil and acrylics. There are no tutorials or painting instruction included.

This is a very short book but very useful. It would make a good reference for maker's spaces, studios, library acquisition, or the home studio.

Four stars.

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

[Debra · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 recommend William Powell’s 1500 color mixing recipes for oil, acrylic, and watercolor over his color mixing for portriats.

I received this galley from NetGalley.

[Rohan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good baseline for artists when it comes to skin tones & how to mix them. HOWEVER, in my copy the skin tone recipes are not labeled so the instructions on the back to "match a palette of skin tones from this book to your portrait subject - for example, 'Native American (Bronze)' " would be near impossible for a beginner to navigate which would be frustrating.

The missing palette titles (in order):
- Caucasian (Warm)
- Caucasian (Light)
- Caucasian (Creamy)
- Caucasian (Cool)
- Caucasian (Ruddy)
- Eurasian
- Asian (Light)
- Asian (Medium)
- East Indian
- Olive Tones
- Middle Eastern
- Latino
- Native American (Red)
- Native American (Bronze)
- Black (Warm/Dark)
- Black (Warm/Light)
- Black (Cool/Dark)
- Black (Cool/Light)

[Agnes Preszler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very useful book for portrait painters. Painting human skin realistically is very difficult, but this volume makes it a lot easier. It contains basic mixes for skintones, color theory notices on how to lighten, darken or grey a color., explanation on facial planes and the corresponding values and colors. The different parts of the face are treated as well with their caracteristics (cool or warm).. For skintones, eyes and hair there come parts with many mixes.
You select a color palette from the book, create the master color using the recipe that belongs to it and modify it to obtain the exact color you need.. Not only for oil and acrylic, there is a section for watercolor painting too, where intensity is regulated through water amount.

[Lee Teyler · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book references color mixed “Recipes” but is not very easy to follow where a particular recipe is located in the book by a page number. Would have been nice if the author would have had one page each covering 1) telling how to find a recipe, and referencing 2) a Color Mixing Guide Style 5324 and 3) a Gray Scale & Value Finder Style 3505 [#2 and #3 by The Color Wheel Company], or like equals.

[Ashley Dang · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book and guide to color mixing!! I found it to be very helpful and detailed in laying out color formats. Super great read and perfect for any artists out there!

*Thanks Netgalley and Walter Foster Publishing for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

[Anya · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't realize at the time of requesting this that this is the same author of the 1500 color mixing recipe book I already own. This volume specifically features recipes for skin, hair and eyes.
This book is like my art bible and one of the books I use almost every time I want to adjust or browse for other options for a portrait. You will use the grid less and less and mixing colors will become second nature the more often you do it. I still find any of the authors books highly valuable, especially if you're just starting out and getting the hang of things.

I can highly recommend this for any artist.

Thank you Netgalley for providing me with a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Maya · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read through this today and found it pretty confusing. It is a reference book though so I might get *some* use out of it at some time in the future...

[Antonia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting — and maybe useful. I've used it for one portrait, and found it helpful — but am such a beginner, I'm not sure yet how much I'll refer to it.

[OjoAusana · Rating 4 out of 5]

*received for free from netgalley for honest review* Good color combinations! Would be very useful for portraits

[Del · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great reference book for painting details ofmcolors and mixing colors. Small and handy.

[Alexandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good starting point for those who do want to incorporate portraits into paintings or stand alone images.. Decent look at shading and mixes.

[Witch-at-Heart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hands down absolutely one if the best books I've seen on mixing skin tone coloring. I was incredibly impressed by this book.

I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to mix their own colors.

[Joseph Boateng]

Please how can i access the book because i can't open it

[Elizabeth Grieve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Useful but would benefit from updating with equivalent colours, or a substitution list, as all artists know that each brand of paint has differing names and shades.

[Suchi Suthar · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book is very useful.