Painting Faces

To paint a pale skin tone use a thin amount of Cadmium Yellow and Alizarin Red (mixed together) and a good bit of water. With those two paints you can create a neutral peach, light yellow or tan tone or even a pink skin tone (if you lean the mixture a little more toward the red).

First, I put down a pale-mid value…

And then, pull off some of the paint in lighter areas by pressing a paper towel on the paper where needed. This is called “pulling off”. I save myself some time and get two values very quickly.

Let that layer fully dry. Then, I use the same paint mixture of Cadmium Yellow and Alizarin Red to layer another value (basically more paint and a little less water so it’s a bit more pigment)…

Again let that dry. Then, another light layer using the same two paint colors but a little more pink in hue around the temples, eye lids, ears, under the chin and on his mouth.

Then, start adding in shadow tones with a mixture of Cadmium Yellow, Alizarin Red, Cobalt Blue and a bit of Burnt Umber.

His hair is various shades of Yellow Ochre mixed with a touch of Ultramarine blue (to soften the Yellow Ochre a bit into a more neutral sandy color) and then also mix in some Burnt Umber and a bit of Black for variations of lights and darks.

For his glasses, I used 2 values of Permanent Rose mixed with Cobalt Blue and a touch of Black.

His eyes are a mixture of Cobalt Blue and a touch of Black. Then, Black for the pupils.

Burnt Sienna and Black for the eye brows and eye lashes in 2-3 shades (as well as in some of the painting details, like around the nose and mouth).

Finish up on the shirt with a soft mixture of Yellow Ochre and Ultramarine Blue (again just enough to tone the Yellow Ochre down into a soft sandy color). And I’m done.

If I were to summarize: Use very thin coats of color (a lot of water and a small amount of pigment). Let the layers dry in-between. Cadmium Yellow and Alizarin Red are the main colors to mix and layer down. Then, mix in just a bit of a blue to shade the skin tone down (“grey it down”) into a shadow color.

If you’d like to see the full painting demo video its at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbtdaE89Bus

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