Color Mixing Bible by Ian Sidaway

When you visit an art store and walk down the paint or pastel aisles you will be faced with a bewildering range of colours. There are so many it's really hard not to be tempted to buy them all. Getting to know the composition of pigments will not only make your use for colour more effective but can also save quite a bit of cash. I've been led astray by a colour - Sapphire for instance - only to get the tube home and discover that it consists of Phthalo Blue and Phthalo green. I could have mixed it myself!

While it's a treat to find a new colour, ultimately you'll realise that a core palette of a dozen or so colours will be all you'll need.

Sometimes what you need is a book to demystify colour...
Color Mixing Bible - all you need to know about mixing pigments in Oil, Acrylic, Watercolor, Gouache, Soft Pastel, Ink and Pencil by Ian Sidaway.

                                           

The Color mixing Bible takes us through the history of colour, the science, colour theory, and pigment composition. He discusses choosing a colour palette then colour mixing in oils, acrylics, watercolour, gouache and even the dry mediums of soft pastel and colour pencils and inks. The last chapter concerns mixing whites in the different mediums.  Not only can you see which colours are used but it's also great to show how a value  scale can be created.

The chapter on terms and definitions associated with colour - hue, tint, transparency, opacity temperature and saturation is clear and concise.

The book is arranged by medium and colour group e.g. Oils/ mixing oranges

The vertical axis shows the range of readily available types of each colour. The horizontal axis features 12 basic palette colours.

Each colour bar shows the colour with successive amounts of the same colour added showing the full strength of each colour.

If you're a teacher and you need a quick colour 'dictionary' this book is useful. When helping a student identify a colour, you can flip to a colour, find the exact shade you'd like to mix and see which pigments were used. It's a great tool to help students analyse colour. 

If you're a beginner, you might be better served by painting your own colour charts. 

It does have a lot of useful information about colour.