Color Mixing Recipes for Portraits

1. Match a palette of skin tones from this book to your portrait subject. 
2. Create the Master Skin Tone Recipe for this palette using the included plastic color mixing grid to measure each paint color. 
3. Follow the recipes to create all the skin tones you will need to complete your portrait—from light values to shadows. 

• Color theory
• Tinting, toning, and shading
• Graying skin tones naturally
• Identifying facial planes
• Mouth, nose, and ear color tones
• Eye and hair color tones
• Watercolor skin tone recipes

Walter Foster’s best-selling Color Mixing Recipes series also includes Color Mixing Recipes for Oil and Acrylic, Color Mixing Recipes for Watercolor, and Color Mixing Recipes for Landscapes. These books contain hundreds of precise color mixing combinations for realistic results, as well as acetate grids for measuring paint units.

William F. Powell was an internationally recognized artist and one of America’s foremost colorists. A native of Huntington, West Virginia, Bill studied at the Art Student’s Career School in New York; Harrow Technical College in Harrow, England; and the Louvre Free School of Art in Paris, France. He was professionally involved in fine art, commercial art, and technical illustrations for more than 45 years. His experience as an art instructor included oil, watercolor, acrylic, colored pencil, and pastel—with subjects ranging from landscapes to portraits and wildlife. He also authored a number of art instruction books, including several popular Walter Foster titles. As a renowned master of color, Bill conducted numerous “Color Mixing and Theory” workshops throughout the US. His expertise in color theory also led him to author and illustrate several articles and an educational series of 11 articles entitled “Color in Perspective” for a national art magazine. Additionally, he performed as an art consultant for national space programs and for several artist’s paint manufacturers. Bill’s work included the creation of background sets for films, model making, animated cartoons, and films for computer mockup programs. He produced instructional painting, color mixing, and drawing art videos.