Isabelle Roelofs - Mastering Color Mixing with Watercolors: Essays on Art, Creativity, Photography, Nature, and Life

Isabelle Roelofs & Fabien Petillion

Mastering Color Mixing with Watercolors

Isabelle Roelofs and Fabien Petillion

Project editor: Maggie Yates

Project manager: Lisa Brazieal

Marketing coordinator: Mercedes Murray

Graphic design and layout: Zaoum

Layout production: WolfsonDesign

Cover design: Aren Straiger

ISBN: 978-1-68198-779-8

1st Edition (1st printing, July 2021)

Original French title: Matriser le mlange des couleurs laquarelle

2021 ditions Eyrolles, Paris, France

Translation copyright 2021 Rocky Nook, Inc.

All illustrations by Isabelle Roelofs, except for the following:

Marie Boudon:

Man:

Cindy Barillet:

Fabien Petillion: front cover illustration and

Rocky Nook Inc.

1010 B Street, Suite 350

San Rafael, CA 94901

USA

www.rockynook.com

Distributed in the UK and Europe by Publishers Group UK

Distributed in the U.S. and all other territories by Ingram Publisher Services

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020952747

All rights reserved. No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the publisher.

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Printed in China

We want to thank Nathalie for listening,
Cindy, Marie, and Man for giving us their time,
and our loved ones for their support.

In this book, we would like to familiarize you with watercolor mixtures.

First, we will detail some of the theoretical notions that are necessary for understanding watercolor mixtures. We will then suggest a palette of 11 colors, made up exclusively of primary and monopigment colors, offering a very extensive chromatic range.

The works of four watercolorists will then guide you with respect to the nuances to be favored in order to build balanced thematic palettes. These will allow for easy and harmonious color mixing. Our 11 colors will form the basis of a large number of mixtures, without however being exhaustive, because others will also be added to support them. Then, a detailed analysis of the step-by-step development of several different watercolor paintings will help you to put the theory of color mixing into practice. It is not enough just to learn how to overcome the specific, common technical weaknesses that we will highlight.

Finally, we want to emphasize the fact that this volume should be read as a guide, one that we hope will make you want to open yourself up to a multitude of experimentations.

In watercolors, nothing stands still, and there is no absolute truth; when it comes to mixing colors, you can try anything. Every artist complements their basic colors with other colors that correspond to their own artistic affinities. This book will allow you to correctly choose your own colors, to appreciate their full potential, and, most of all, not to buy colors for which you will ultimately have no use.

Isabelle Roelofs and Fabien Petillion