Watercolor Mixing Directory

I am a relatively new watercolorist. There is a lot to learn about technique, support, and of course, media. A challenge of watercolors compared with other media is how the various colors interact with each other and much of the "technique" is mastering this phenomenon. This book shows approximately what happens when 2 colors are mixed in various ways. The results are both enlightening and surprising, like how dominant some of the reds are no matter what they are mixed with. I say approximately, because the common criticism of these kinds of books is that a printed color is never an exact copy of the original, and also the various manufacturers use different formulations for the same named colors, making the matches not exact. Also, as broad as the directory is with over 2,500 color mixes, it still is fairly limited when compared to all of the possible colors available on the market today. More seasoned watercolorists will have replicated much of this work with their preferred colors and will be pretty comfortable with their palette. For those of us without that experience and who are just trying to sort out basic color mixing, this directory speeds us down our merry path. Of course its not the same as mixing your own colors and applying them to your own paper, and it does not speak to value changes, so a beginner is still left guessing what the mixed colors look like at low values. In spite of this, the book will prevent a lot of wasted time and paint trying to find the "right" combination of colors. An inexpensive and invaluable guide for a new watercolorist.

This Directory is by far the best of the books on mixing watercolor paint. It has more basic colors, more mixes than other books I have looked at or have bought. The mixes are very close to the actual paint - and always close enough to know approximately what you will get when mixing two colors together.