The Incredible Way to Paint Skin in a Portrait Painting

welcome back to simplified drawing and painting in this video I'm going to be showing you how to paint more vibrant skin colors my subject for this portrait is Magnus who I've lit with a cool daylight lamp and I'll be using a palette which includes a few more intense colors because in this demo I'm going to be sharing some methods that will help you create more colorful paintings first I'm toning my canvas with a cool gray ground which I see as being quite similar in color and value to the white cloth I've placed behind Magnus I'm then going to start mapping out the head on the canvas I'm using a few simple lines to indicate the position of the features and the main areas of light and dark if you'd like to see a longer version of this painting this is the latest demo in my alloprima portrait painting course so there's a full length version filmed in real time available to watch over on my patreon channel with the head placed on the canvas I'm now mixing a dark transparent color made with transparent oxide red ultramarine and alizarin crimson which I'm going to use to start massing in all the dark areas the shadows and the hair when you paint someone with darker skin you will find a wider range of tonal values the color of the Flesh in the light areas will usually be darker so the highlights will appear much lighter compared to the Flesh in the light a mistake I often see my students make when they see this difference in value is that they will treat the darker skin next to the highlights as Shadows when in fact they're in an area of light so they mass in everything apart from the highlights as dark it's really important to be able to differentiate between the areas of light and the shadows in order for your subject to appear 3D even if the color of the Flesh in those light areas is relatively dark after massing in the shadows I'm now mixing a color for the main areas of light this is a warm Brown made with transparent oxide red titanium white and a small amount of ultramarine to neutralize it just a little this mixture isn't an exact match for any of the colors that I see in magnus's skin at this stage all I'm thinking about is making it the right value and temperature there are actually several different colors within the light areas and it's adding this variety that will make your flesh appear lifelike more than trying to match any particular color exactly now I'm mixing a much cooler lighter violet color made with titanium white alizarin crimson ultramarine and yellow ocher to gray it down which I'm going to use to place the really bright highlights on magnus's left cheek on the bridge of the nose and the tip of the nose and just above the left eyebrow here I'm mixing more of the Shadow color which I'm using to restate the shadows and fine-tune some of the drawing the reason the highlights appear so much lighter compared to the rest of the Flesh in the light areas is because darker skin tends to be more reflective this means they will reflect back the color of the light source which is cool so as well as being lighter the highlights will also appear much cooler compared to the warmer flesh next to them this difference in temperature will make it easier to push the color even further so I'll be able to introduce some notes of more intense color into the flesh but before I do that I'm first going to mix the bright orange of magnus's shirt made by mixing just pure cadmium yellow with cadmium red I chose this shirt because it brings out some of the warmer notes in magnus's skin whenever you have masses of really bright color in a portrait either because of clothing or in the background you need to put them down early on that way you can see how they work and you can find ways to harmonize them with the rest of the image which I'll be showing you how to do later on in this demo here I'm mixing some solvent into the orange in order to create some drips along the edge at the bottom the last thing you want is to have a beautifully painted head only to completely overpower it with some really bright color now I'm mixing a warmer version of the flesh color that I used for the main areas of light this is made with transparent oxide red but instead of lightening it with titanium white which we'll cool it down I'm using cadmium yellow to create a much more orange brown I'm then going to use this color to place some of the warmer notes that I see in magnus's skin and do you see how this warm orange flesh color Echoes the orange of the shirt creating a color Harmony this flesh color isn't as bright as the shirt but it is more intense than the warmer notes in magnus's flesh actually appear so I'm pushing the color wherever I see a hint of warmth in magnus's skin I'm making these notes even warmer and more intense here I'm mixing a green color made with Yellow ocher Viridian and neutralize the little with some transparent oxide red this is a middle value that's in between the shadows and the main areas of light which I'm going to place along the edges of the Shadows in order to round the form I don't really see this green anywhere on my subject what I do see is that the edges of the Shadows get cooler and grayer as they turn towards the lights but because this green is also cooler than both the shadows and my brown flesh color it still works I'm now mixing a cool gray violet color made with alizarin Crimson titanium white and ultramarine then I'm graying it down with some yellow ocher I'm going to use this color to create the soft transitions where the highlights Fade Into the surrounding flesh because the highlights are so much lighter this violet color needs to be a value in between the highlights and the color that I used for the main areas of light I'm then going to mix a more intense violet color this time containing none of the yellow to gray it down but that's actually a little too cool and Light so here I'm making it darker and warmer so that it's now the same value as the main areas of light I also want you to notice how when you view this Violet separately on the palette it's quite a warm color but when I place it on my painting next to the warmer flesh color it appears much cooler so remember the appearance of any particular color will always depend on its relationships with the other colors in the painting once again I don't really see this color anywhere on Magnus but I'm noticing areas where the flesh appears a little cooler so I'm using it as an opportunity to introduce a few notes of intense violet this is going to be the purest and most intense flesh color which will hopefully make this into a much more colorful vibrant portrait here I'm mixing another intense violet color made with alizarin Crimson white ultramarine and a touch of transparent oxide red to neutralize it just a little this time however it's the same value as the Shadows I'm using this color for the reflected light that's bouncing back into the Shadows off the white cloth and notice how cool and blue this Violet appears when placed next to the warmer Shadow color so I now have all of my subject blocked in and I've already established quite a lot of variation in color from here I'm going to start work on the features remember if you want to see exactly how I painted the features the full length version of this demo will be available to watch over on my patreon channel as I add the smaller shapes and details I will continue to mix more colors and just as before I'll be looking for variations in temperature and intensity rather than trying to match any of the colors that I see precisely now it is definitely possible to produce a successful painting by using precise color matching but I find it takes longer and is much more difficult also it isn't actually necessary to match colors exactly in order for your work to appear realistic the world presents us with a myriad of different colors so it's actually the variation itself the combination of warm and cool of intense and more neutral colors that helps create a colorful lifelike effect but for this to work all the colors need to be the correct value so you're essentially trying to find variations of color within each of the main values the lights the Shadows the mid tones and so on if you want a simple rule to help you remember this just think less values more colors so try to experiment by pushing the color more when you see a shift towards cool add a note of more intense green or blue or where it gets warmer add orange yellow or pink remember you don't always have to be realistic so you can go even more extreme but if your colors are the right value and temperature and the intense notes are also balanced with more neutral colors you can achieve a very lifelike effect I'm now mixing a really dark color made with ultramarine transparent oxide red and alizarin crimson which I'm using to place the shadows in magnus's hair for the lighter parts of the hair I'm going to leave some of the warm transparent colors showing through that I used to block in the darks at the start I'm then mixing a light gray background color made with titanium white ultramarine transparent oxide red and alizarin crimson which I'm going to use to carve out the outside edges of the hair here I'm mixing a slightly darker cool violet color which I'm using for the places where I can see the background showing through the hair these will always appear darker than the background itself now I'm mixing another green color that's the same value as the lighter parts of the hair I'm then going to place a few notes of this green in the hair this will Echo The Greens in the flesh and create more of a color Harmony here I'm mixing a darker gray violet color and I'm placing some of this in the hair once again this Echoes the violets in the flesh by adding these notes of more neutral Violet and also the cooler green to the warm brown hair color this will create variation that will make the hair appear more colorful and lifelike I'm now placing a few notes of bright pink in the background this pink is exactly the same value as the cool gray background color notice how the colors vibrate next to each other to make the background more colorful it also Echoes some of the pink in the highlights on the portrait adding to the color Harmony now I'm mixing a cooler more neutral yellow color made with yellow ocher and cadmium yellow I'm then placing some on the shirt and look how green this yellow now appears next to the bright orange this green is the same value as the orange so just like with the background it vibrates adding to the intensity of the color while at the same time also harmonizing the shirt with the other notes of green elsewhere in the painting and there it is my portrait of Magnus hopefully this has shown you how thinking about colors in terms of their relationships with each other will make mixing color easier and enable you to create more colorful paintings so I hope that was helpful until next time thank you for watching

Channel: SIMPLIFY Drawing and Painting

Views: 14,836

Keywords: how to mix skin tones, mixing skin tones, skin tones, how to mix flesh tones, how to paint skin, color mixing oil paint, how to paint portraits in oil, color mixing paint, how to mix flesh tones in oil paint, how to mix flesh tones in oil, how to mix great flesh tones, portrait painting tutorial, portrait painting oil, portrait painting techniques, oil painting tutorial portrait, alex tzavaras, alex tzavaras portrait demo, alla prima oil painting, alla prima portrait painting

Id: u907YVPY8iY

Length: 16min 36sec (996 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 12 2023