Color Mixing Recipes for Portraits: More Than 500 Color Combinations for Skin, Eyes, Lips & Hair - Includes One Color Mixing Grid (Color Mixing Recipes)

by William F Powell

Cassandra Radcliff-Mendoza (Editor)

Color Mixing Recipes for Portraits Oil - Acrylic - Watercolor features master mixes for an array of skin colors in oil, acrylic, and watercolor—plus recipes for hair, eye, and lip colors.

Also included are 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 Color Mixing Recipes for Portraits Oil - Acrylic - Watercolor and your painting materials, follow the three simple steps to mix virtually any skin tone for your portrait: 

1. Match a palette of skin tones from this book to your portrait subject. 
2. Create the Master Skin Tone Recipe for this palette using the included plastic color mixing grid to measure each paint color. 
3. Follow the recipes to create all the skin tones you will need to complete your portrait—from light values to shadows. 

Also featured in this book:

• Color theory
• Tinting, toning, and shading
• Graying skin tones naturally
• Identifying facial planes
• Mouth, nose, and ear color tones
• Eye and hair color tones
• Watercolor skin tone recipes

With recipes for more than 500 color combinations, Color Mixing Recipes for Portraits Oil - Acrylic - Watercolor is your ultimate source for painting realistic skin, mouths, ears, noses, eyes, and hair.

Walter Foster’s best-selling Color Mixing Recipes series also includes Color Mixing Recipes for Oil and Acrylic, Color Mixing Recipes for Watercolor, and Color Mixing Recipes for Landscapes. These books contain hundreds of precise color mixing combinations for realistic results, as well as acetate grids for measuring paint units.

• ISBN13: 9781600588921
• Publish Date: 22 June 2021 (first published 1 May 2006)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Walter Foster Publishing
• Edition: Revised Edition
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 48
• Language: English

Reviews

[annieb123]

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.