The Colour Mixing Guide: Watercolour Botanicals

Create over 100 vibrant watercolor mixes and paint a range of inspiring botanicals including flowers, leaves, seedheads and bulbs with award-winning artist and color-mixing guru Julie Collins.

This colorful, practical book features 15 vibrant and varied botanical subjects including a geranium, hydrangea, maple leaf, cardoon and allium bulb. All 15 subjects feature a complete list of colour mixes used with colour ratios and finished swatches for inspiration, and five of the subjects are painted step by step so that you can follow the process of selecting colors, mixing and painting from start to finish.

Discover:

• Comprehensive information about color, including a color wheel and a guide to pure and mixed pigments
• Essential watercolor techniques such as painting wet into wet, wet on dry, washes, lifting off and more
• 15 inspirational paintings with color swatches, 5 shown step by step from start to finish
• Useful tips and tricks scattered throughout

This book will inspire your love of color, provide you with color mixing inspiration and is designed to equip you with the knowledge you need to confidently create your own color mixes.

Mix the perfect colors for every painting with the inspiring and easy-to-use Color Mixing Guide series. Each book features over 100 key color mixes on a popular theme, showing you how to create exactly the colors you want, and building up your color knowledge at every stage. These handy, pocket-sized paperbacks make ideal gifts or on-the-go reference guides: each contains 64 pages bursting with colour and jam-packed with practicalLibrary Journal - Jan 15, 2025

Drawing inspiration from nature, watercolor artist Collins (The Colour Mixing Companion) shows readers how a palette of just 23 colors can be mixed to depict a variety of botanical subjects. Collins begins with an introduction to watercolor paints, explaining why she recommends building up one’s own selection of colors rather than purchasing pre-packaged sets. A concise, well-explained overview of color theory leads into a discussion of various watercolor techniques, including wet on wet and wet on dry, and the creation of different washes and textural effects. The book’s four sections cover flowers, leaves, seeds, and bulbs, and each provides a painting project with downloadable outlines and step-by-step instructions as well as a supply list. Most critically, Collins instructs readers which colors from her suggested palette should be mixed, and in what ratios, to create the shades necessary for each project.
VERDICT The simple, delicate beauty of Collins’s paintings should inspire rather than intimidate beginner artists. Detailed instructions, including techniques to use, brush sizes to choose, and colors to mix, make this an exemplary resource for new watercolor painters.Julie Collins studied Fine Art at the University of Reading, UK and has been an artist, writer and teacher since then. She has written a number of color mixing guides and artists’ problem‑solving books and also writes for The Artist magazine. She works from her studio in Hampshire, UK, where she explores her passion for painting, drawing and crafts.

Julie has received numerous prestigious awards for her painting, including from the Royal Watercolour Society, the Royal West of England Academy and ING Discerning Eye. Julie was elected a Member of the Society of Women Artists and on to the SWA Council in 2022.
Julie is also the author of Colour Demystified, published by Search Press in 2021, which has sold over 9k copies to date.