ArtBistro

A Simple Way To Do Flesh Tones and Create A Portrait:

1. Draw out the face/figure in erasable colored pencil. (Graphite has a property that doesn’t mix well with paint).

2. Fix the drawing with workable fixative or hair spray. Test the drawing with turpentine to make sure it is secured onto the surface. You don’t want to lose the drawing.

3. Do a monochromatic under-painting using burnt umber and Burnt Sienna. Use Burnt Umber for the cooler parts and burnt sienna for the warmer parts. These colors can vary for different paintings. A night scene may be better with an monochromatic under painting in Ultra-Marine. Make sure that the values for the whole painting are mapped out to the values the painting will be when it’s done. Make sure that there are no hard edges. Keep whites as bright as possible.

4. Let the under painting dry. If you are in a rush to start the painting, spray crystal clear on top of the under painting. Crystal Clear allows thin layers of paint to dry quickly.

5. Because all the values are mapped out, it is almost like coloring in a picture, but more like a puzzle because color can be very challenging. Easy skin tone palette: Starting from the bottom: (I prefer Gamblin oil colors. To me Winsor and Newton is a bit more chunky and Gamblin’s is like butter). Starting from the bottom of your palette, put the colors from lowest to highest to make mixing easy. Naples Yellow Hue Caucasian Flesh Tone Raw Umber Cadmium Red Medium Alizeran Crimson Permanent Burnt Umber Asphaultum(Gamblin)

On the other side of the palette: Ultra-Marine blue Phalo blue Cerulean blue

High Chroma Colors: Cadmium Yellow Light Cadmium Yellow Hue (I like Winsor and Newton’s). Rose

Other: Yellow Ochre(Mixed with Burnt Umber this makes a rich brown great for hair color). Titanium White

Medium: Poppy Oil: Mix it in with the oil paint to give it a nice flow and to prevent the painting from drying too fast. Poppy Oil does not yellow with age like many other painting mediums.

Mix from bottom to top with a palette knife, starting with Naples. Use a generous amount, and add a bit of Flesh Tone and drop of Cadmium Yellow Hue. Leave it pure, but bring a bit up and mix a tiny amount of Raw Umber in. Too much Raw Umber will make skin tones too muddy looking. Then take the slightly muddy mixture and mix the Cadmium Red Medium and next move the mixture up and add Alizeran. The Burnt Umber and Alizeran mixture is next. These are your warm flesh tone colors. If you look at a face the cheeks and ears are usually the warmest. The chin also has a bit of warmth to it.

Next, leave a space on your palette next to the warms and start your cooler colors. Take a gob of Naples and mix Burnt Umber in from light(at the bottom) to dark. To get the mid tones mix the cool colors with the warm colors. Mix up the scale again filling in the space you left.

For real warm cheeks mix the Naples/Fleshtone/Cadmium Yellow Hue mixture with a bit of Cadmium Red Medium.

Note: Before you start painting in the face and/or figure outline it lightly with Asphaltum to keep crispness. Don’t let it dry.

Painting this way takes many layers. Make sure to work cleanly to prevent the skin colors from getting muddy. Work sculpturally, starting with all the dark paints to light.

When you’ve done all the darks move to the lights. Add Titanium White into the Naples/Fleshtone mixture and add a slight amount of Cadmium Yellow Light. If you use white too early in dark colors they will become muddy and appear chalky. The darker colors will always be thinner then the lighter ones because you are working sculpturally.

Don’t be afraid to use lots of paint. Make sure you use big enough brushes to carry enough paint. Filberts are the best for this. Sables are good for doing details.

Important: A wonderful way to make black without using black is a mixture of Asphaltum and Ultra-Marine Blue. If you mix white with this you’ll get a nice grey.

Remember that this is just a basic formula. You can try it out and experiment to make it your own. What works for me doesn’t necessarily work for everyone.

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