The Colour Mixing Guide: Watercolour Seashore by Julie Collins

The Colour Mixing Guide: Watercolour Seashore by Julie Collins includes 15 seaside themed painting projects suitable for beginners. Julie’s exercises are simple, effective and straightforward - and will introduce you to over 100 different colour mixes that perfectly capture seashore subjects.

Colourful and practical, the painting projects in this book include mussel shells, coral weed, sea grass, sardines, blue jellyfish and more. Each project comes with a complete list of colour mixes - complete with mixing ratios - and a painted swatch of the final result. Five of the fifteen projects include a fully illustrated step-by-step painting process, you can match Julie’s techniques stroke by stroke. The remaining ten projects include an illustration of the finished pieces alongside detailed colour mixes.

Not only does this book include fifteen painting projects, it also includes loads of colour mixing theory straight from the guru herself. The book begins with a comprehensive chapter about colour, including a colour wheel and a guide to pure and mixed pigments. Julie also touches on essential watercolour techniques such as wet on wet, wet on dry, washes, lifting off and more. There are plenty of handy tips and tricks scattered throughout the book that will inspire your love of colour and equip you with the knowledge needed to make your own mixes.

64 page paperback. 155 x 215mm

LOOK INSIDE

1. Introduction 4

2. Tools and materials 6

3. Colours 8

4. Colour wheel and colour charts 12

5. Watercolour techniques 16

6. PROJECTS

7. Shells, stones and feathers 22

   1. Mussel shells 23

   2. Stones 28

   3. Feathers 29

8. Seaweed30

   1. Bladderwrack 31

   2. Coral weed 36

   3. Sea lettuce 37

9. Plants and grasses 38

   1. Sea kale 39

   2. Yellow horned poppy 44

   3. Sea grass 45

10. Fish, shellfish and jellyfish 46

    1. Sardines 47

    2. Red sea bream 52

    3. Snapper 53

    4. Blue swimmer crab 54

    5. Prawns 60

    6. Blue jellyfish 61

11. Glossary 62

Julie Collins studied Fine Art at the University of Reading and has been an artist, writer and teacher since then. She has written a number of colour mixing guides and artists’ problemsolving books and also writes for Leisure Painter & 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 10k copies to date.