Watercolor Mixing: Twelve Hue Method: Getting the Wow Effect in your Paintings

Rating:
Summary: Best Practical Color Book I've Found
Review: As an occassional painter this is the best practical color book I've seen out there. I tried many others including the Wilcox book (unusable and vague -- too hard) and Albers (too much theory.) My paintings immediately got better when I used this book. White and black are discussed and I now know how to use them well. It's not just for watercolorists like me, but I've also used it for my acrylics. It's a great book and I highly recommend it to any painters out there, like me.

Rating:
Summary: Worse than useless as a guide to understanding color--
Review: The big negative is in Willard's explanations of how to neutralize saturated (bright ) colors. He recommends black!!! I think this neutralizes any of the book's positives, given that it is teaching color theory and this is the cardinal sin of colorists--using black to neutralize!!! For a much better, truly scientific and sensible explanation of using colors, try "Blue and Yellow Don't make Green," by Michael Wilcox--this is ground-breaking, easy to follow, and actually works, unlike Willard's book which will lead you astray. Nice paintings though.