| Now, when you're talking about something as complex and subtle as a face, the color possibilities are truly endless. Just remember, any gray is made up of primaries and you can paint it as colorful or as subtle as you like -- there is no formula, different artists will interpret the same subject in their own way even though they're all painting what they see. I remember when I was learning this in life drawing with pastels and was confused when I saw students using pure colors in their pictures. I knew I just didn't see pure green in a face -- was there something different about the way their eyes saw color, I wondered? I think it was Rose Frantzen or maybe Amy Berenz who took my pastels and showed me how you could mix the gray flesh tones I was using with pure colors by crosshatching.
Mr. Parks (my teacher) went even farther. I kept getting bigger and bigger sets of pastels, constantly complaining that I just couldn't find that exact flesh tone that I saw on the model. He finally locked my massive set in his locker, gave me a set of ten pastels he'd gotten from the drugstore with pure colors, black and white; and told me I was to use these for a couple months until I realized that I could mix any of the colors in my large set with them. It was a lesson I carry in my mind to this day. Here's a pastel demo I did for my last Scottsdale workshop class that better shows the concept of visually mixing brighter colors. From this larger viewpoint the colors visually blend together into their more grayish feel.
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