Oil & Acrylic Color Mixing Recipes

The definitive color-mixing resource for oil and acrylic artists, Oil & Acrylic Color Mixing Recipes: Card Deck & Color Mixing Grid offers a portable, studio-ready update to William F. Powell’s trusted system. 

This compact set distills the essentials of Powell’s classic reference into 35 durable cards together with an instructional booklet and acetate mixing grid, so you can measure, mix, and repeat results with confidence—whether you’re at the easel, in class, or painting on location.

Each recipe card pairs a full-color swatch with clear pigment ratios and a cross-referenced index, making it simple to look up a target hue, confirm the formula, and mix exactly what you need—no guesswork, no wasted paint. The cards extend the learning with concise lessons on value control, complementary mixing, and natural graying to keep colors clean, believable, and harmonious across subjects—from landscape greens and coastal neutrals to skin tones and shadow families.

Designed for oil and acrylic painters at any level, the deck’s step-by-step process is quick to learn and easy to teach.

Follow these four simple steps to mix more than 400 color combinations:

1. Look in the Color Guidance Index in the booklet for the subject you want to paint—for example, “Sunflower Yellow.”
2. Find the Color Recipe Card with the subject’s recipe number (“8”) and a photo of the actual paint mixture.
3. Use the Color Mixing Grid to measure each paint color.
4. Mix the color.

It’s that easy! Because ratios are visual and repeatable, you’ll build a personalized palette that stays consistent from study to final. Portable, practical, and pedagogically sound, this deck turns color theory into action—so you can spend less time testing and more time painting with intent.

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