How to mix basic skin tones part 1

Ah, skin tones. It seems they're the enemy of so many artists, new artists especially. Why do so many have such a hard time with this? What's so different about mixing skin tones than any other color? Well, chances are you're just over thinking them, skipping over the basics of color mixing, or both. Color mixing, it's a simple thing that so many over complicate. Instead of mixing colors, many would rather buy every color in existence and use it straight from the tube. Even grays they can't or don't want to mix. This makes something as complex as a skin tone is the hardest thing they can think of mixing. Now, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with tube or bottle colors as is, if that works for you and your style of painting, use it. Do whatever makes you happy with your art. But chances are, if you want more realistic or specific colors, you'll need to learn to mix them. So let's take a look at some basic color theory and what you might be doing wrong to start off with.

Let's take a look at the wheel to the right. Its not mine, just an image of one I found. This is a basic color wheel with red, yellow, blue, primaries. I'll use this example because its what majority are use to, what we're all taught in grade school. (Magenta, cyan, and yellow are the true primaries but we'll get into that another time.) Now, with these three primaries I'm sure many of you have one into this problem, and its where the RYB primary is tricky. You want to mix a purple, a simple color, right? And a mix you learned in kindergarten. Red and blue makes purple. So, you grab a red, and you grab a blue, and you mix them together. But, huh? That didn't work as planned. Red and blue do make purple, right? They do. But, there's more to it. There's both warm reds, and warm blues, and cool reds, and cool blues. (Same for yellows, by the way, but we don't need yellow in this example.) What does this mean? It means that they have a red or blue bias. This color wheel doesn't show that, but you can see the complimentary colors. So let's back up a minute. When you look at this color wheel, you'll see the colors directly across from each other. Blue and orange, red and green, yellow and purple. These are complimentary colors and when mixed, they gray each other out. It's a great way to dull the brightness of a color when needed, or to darken a color without using black which can be too strong for most colors. But those complimentary colors are sneaky and muddy up your colors if you aren't careful, too. So let's go back to trying to mix that purple you wanted. You mixed them, you expected purple. But what you got was a dull, muddy, almost brown with a purple tint. Great if that's what you wanted and meant to mix. Frustrating if you don't know why it happened and expected bright purple. What red did you use? What blue? If you use a warm red, cool blue, or both, those complimentary colors sneak in there without you knowing. This is because warm reds are bright and orange leaning. Remember orange is the compliment to blue and dulls or grays it? Add the cool, possibly green leaning blue, and you have the compliment of red, which dulls and grays it. So mix them together, and you won't get the bright purple color you expect. Instead, pick cool leaning reds like crimson and magentas, and a warm leaning blue like an ultramarine blue. What does all this have to do with mixing skin tones? A lot. And I'll explain as I show a mix I've used recently. Keep in mind I don't have the greatest camera, and the lighting in my room isn't good. So its hard to see the minor changes in the colors of the pictures, but hopefully you can get enough of an idea.

Let's start with not using bottle or tubes colors as they are. There are many pre-mixed fleshy colors. So why can't you use those? Well, if they give you the color and look you want? Fantastic. Use it. No ones saying you can't do that. But, as seen here (at least the best I could show) they're often too bright, too saturated. This one is a light portrait pink. Its great to have in your tool box if you paint portraits regularly, and it'll be different between different brands, but it needs to be mixed with other colors. Its too pink, too bright. I've used the colors above for the mix I made this time. Raw sienna, light portrait pink, and Naples yellow. You can use a basic red or magenta or red, and yellow with white for this too if you don't have the same colors.

Light portrait pink, and naples yellow with teeny amounts of raw sienna.

Ah, but this mix, its too orange! What are we painting, oompa loompas? Nope. That's not what were doing. But see how this is a close fleshy color? Remember when we talked about the color wheel and adding complimentary colors to dull a color?

The same applies to this! Remember what the compliment to orange is? If not, go back to the color wheel or where we talked about it and remind yourself.

Did you get it yet? Awesome. So let's put it into practice.

 

For me, I needed blue to dull the orange of the color. But I wanted some purple as well because I can see it in the shadows of my photo I'm referencing. Now, I know its hard to see the differences, but its there. And you don't want to add so much blue that you have a gray, or it starts to become blue. You want to add the tiniest amount until you get it to where you're happy, a desaturated version of the orange color. I used ultramarine blue and deep violet in mine. Once I was happy with mine, I split it in half to have that main darker color. Then I added more Naples yellow and a bit of titanium white to what was left. This was my mid-tone highlight. Then I split that in half, and added more white to get a highlight color. This is how I approach skin tones.

And here is my pallet in better lighting. This is the color scheme I used for this particular portrait. The left shows a close up of my three values of skin tones, the left shows it all. A magenta and deep violet with a touch of the skin tone mixed with it. Deep violet, ultramarine blue, light portrait pink, Naples yellow, and titanium white. I added Paynes gray before I started too because I needed something darker.

Again, any red, yellow, and white can do the same thing. All will give slightly different hues. Another few mixes I often use is red oxide, yellow oxide, and white. Then blue to tone the orange. Crimson and yellow oxide is a great mix, too. Play with any reds, red browns, and yellows. See what you get, see what matches the specific skin tone you're after. Add more red or more yellow depending on what you see in the reference of the person. Play with browns, blues, and purples for shadows and avoid black unless they are super deep dark shadow.

I hope this helped a little bit! I'll be back at some point with a second part which includes darker skin tones!

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