Skin Tones Portrait Classroom

[LaceyLew]

Introduction

Welcome to the Skin Tones Portrait Classroom! The subject of skin tones is a broad one. Some subjects relating to or affecting the appearance of skin tones have already been covered, so I will try to weave in between these subjects and leave open the possibility of further exploring certain aspects.

I will not be doing a demonstration nor be giving assignments due to the range of approaches that are possible. I simply hope that everyone can find some bit of information that is useful to their work and employ it. I will include as many examples, diagrams or illustrations as I can and will answer questions as best I can. Even though there isn’t an assignment aspect to this, feel free to post your work or experiments that you do as a result of this thread.

Outline of Study

We will be focusing on “realistic” skin tones under simple warm or cool lighting. Here is the scope of what this thread will cover (may be expanded as needed):

Skin Color (Local Color of Skin)
Effect of Light and Shadow/Logic of Light
Modeling Form with Temperature and Value
Discussion of Skin Tone Palettes

I’ll be back soon for the first installment!

[artbabe21]

welcome Lacey & I look forward to your demo! A really important one at that!! I always have difficulty with color....grrr.
I've stuck this thread so it will get the attention it deserves...:)

[K Taylor-Green]

This is exactly what I need!! I can't wait to start!

[Dana Design]

And I agree! I have so many palettes for skin tones that I'm totally confused. Can't wait for this!

[Darkwave]

I'm scared!

I read in an american artist magazine (Pastel Highlights 2 pg. 16) that one artist named Margaret Dyer only uses greens and lavenders to produce realistic looking skin tones. What? She says it's "due to the glazing." They of course do not go into the details of glazing assuming that if you bought the magazine then you probably already know all about it. She said, "The different colors neutralize each other and optically mix to the right color"...and I'm still lost.
I ordered some pastel pencils, but they're not here yet. I look forward to watching and learning. Great Idea!

Jules

[Smokin]

What perfect timeing, I've been spending this week in tring to learn skin tones. Like everyone else, I have alot of pallets I have no clue on how to use.

Here is what I have done so far. Very simple pallet.
http://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=287806

[jhercilia]

Looking forward for these teachings.

[valchina612]

Oh boy, I am looking so forward to this, as I have such a problem with what I should be using for skintones. Thankyou so much Lacey.

Val. :wave:

[LaceyLew]

I'm glad to have you all as an audience! I hope the information that I present will help everyone. After I present the information on palettes, I hope we can all have an open discussion about them. I will be presenting 2 basic approaches to the skin tone palette that are pretty much opposite on the spectrum, but there are many approaches in between that can be explored, depending on our inclinations!

I should be back to present the first section later today! I will aim for one section every day or two and will try to answer as many questions as possible.

-Lacey :cool:

[windrose]

I agree, perfect timing. I will also be watching this. I,too, have many skin tone palettes, but have not fully understood the best ways to use them. Thanks Lacey

[LaceyLew]

Local Color of Skin

Before we even begin painting or drawing, we need to observe certain things about what we see in the skin. This will help determine the colors that we decide to use in our palette and/or how we use the colors.

First, what color is the skin? Generally speaking, the local color of skin falls within the yellow to red area on the color wheel. The skin might lean towards yellow, be fairly orange, very red, or a pinkish color. Sometimes using a photo editing program to increase the saturation can help you to see these colors, but use your judgment when you read this information.

[LaceyLew]

(I hope you were able to see the difference in the regular and saturated images above. Please ask for clarification if you need it!)

Also determine the overall value of the skin. Is the skin medium, light, or dark in value? These values will also vary across the same face and may cover only a few steps on the value scale or many steps. Lighting will also influence the range of values apparent across the skin. Again using the photo editing program, use the desaturated tool or convert the image to black and white to isolate the values.

(PS: Thanks to everyone who submitted to the reference library!)

[LaceyLew]

The key to understanding the color of the skin is to assess its saturation. Saturation is the relative pureness of a color. A color usually becomes desaturated by adding its compliment. When we look at skin tones, it often seems like the colors aren’t on a basic color wheel. Therefore, it is helpful to look at a color wheel that includes more and less saturated variations of each color. I am including a graphic of one that is not of the best quality, but others that are arranged more logically and include accurate progressions of color are available commercially and in various books you can find at the library. This should at least give you an idea of the different saturations.

To make matters even more complicated, the saturation and color of skin also varies on each person! Areas that receive more blood, like the cheeks and nose, are likely to be redder and more saturated, while areas that contain veins close to the surface of the skin may be desaturated or take on a blue cast. You can see the evidence of this by looking at the palm of your hand, where you will see the pads look redder and the very middle is blue with veins. The extent that these things affect skin tones is different from one ethnicity to the next and also varies among each individual.

[LaceyLew]

Review:
When looking at skin, look closely to determine the color of the skin, the saturation of the skin, and the value range of the skin. Try to see the subtle variations, how the value, color and saturation changes as you go from forehead to eye socket, eye socket to cheek, cheek to chin, and chin to neck.

Here are a few portraits to look at. Try to answer the above questions with each one. Do some have more variations among certain aspects than others? Feel free to share and discuss your observations here!

[LaceyLew]

Next: We will explore how light affects the skin tones that we see and start to apply “Light Logic” even if we don’t always see its effects outright. I suggest we all review celestia’s thread in the portrait classroom on light and shadows, as I will not be going as in-depth on the aspects that she has already covered. She has some great examples and wonderful info there, so check it out! ;)

[windrose]

Lacey,
Thanks for the new info. I have copied it and will do the exercises you suggest. Windrose

[eileenclaire]

Lacey,
Thank you so much for doing this presentation. Great photos - they illustrate your points beautifully. I am so looking forward to the rest of this! I especially can't wait to see the skin tone palettes, as I am always in search of good color combinations.

[windrose]

In last group of photos, I can see that the man in the fur hat has various values of yellow orange and the boy seems to have a red hued skin, but I really am having trouble determining those of the other two. Anyone have any ideas? Windrose

[jhercilia]

On the baby I see reds, greenish yellow, purples and light blues.
On the guy with the fur, also see the yellow orange with some green on the area of the beard.

[LaceyLew]

Hi,

I will try to do an assessment of a couple of these pictures. I'll start with the baby. Value wise, she has light skin. If you look at her cheeks, you will see that they are pink in color. Let's talk about reds:

Both when looking at your subject and when deciding what red to use, you have to determine the relative warmness/coolness of the red. You may want to try several things to help you learn about different types of red. If you have a photo-editing program, you can use the eyedropper tool on an area of skin and click on the sample you took. This will bring up a little window that will show you where on the color spectrum the selected color is. Alternatively, gather a variety of paint chips (free!) or color-aid papers to compare your color to. These often have information listed on the back as to if it contains violet, yellow, orange or just red. You will need to gauge your paints/pencils/pastels the same way. Some reds will appear to change temperature as you add white, etc. I'll try to cover much of this later in the thread.

OK, back to the baby! Using the above methods, you will find the color of the cheeks to be pink, from a red that is cool (leaning towards violet), light in value and fairly saturated. Also notice around the mouth, eyes, and the neck down become desaturated. Compare the cool red and the warm, orange red to the cheek color. Notice the desaturated color... it doesn't look like a flesh tone when it is isolated!

[jhercilia]

Ok, I was off on the color around her mouth. I thought it has some light greenish yellow. I really have trouble seeying colors even though I am 20/20!

[LaceyLew]

It is much more difficult to read into desaturated skin tones. Lets go to the little girl posing with her hands over her head. It is hard to see if her skin if pinkish, orangish, or reddish because it has been desaturated with a color opposite on the color wheel. If we use the saturation tool, it becomes easier to see that her skin is based in orange. Otherwise, you can try to compare with a range of reds, or poke a hole through a white or grey piece of paper to isolate some colors.

The girl's skin color isn't a strong orange, but a medium value orange that has been desaturated with blue to green tones. When you look at the dark, medium, and light isolated samples, you can still see how it leans towards orangeish-red. Do you see the blues and greens undulating in there somewhere?

Careful observation before-hand can really help when it comes time to put down the right color. Is this helpful?

[windrose]

jhercilia and LaceyLew
Thanks for the response and the assessment. I see what you are talking about.
Windrose

[LaceyLew]

Ok, I was off on the color around her mouth. I thought it has some light greenish yellow. I really have trouble seeying colors even though I am 20/20!

Technically, you are correct! A pink or red that is cool does not contain yellow in it. The complement of red is green. If the red is leaning towards purple, the accurate complement would therefore contain more yellow. Therefore, our accurate complement would be a yellowish green! If we had a red leaning towards yellow or orange, then our compliment would be a green that leans towards blue.

Also, there may be plenty of other colors peeking through here or there, and a skilled artist can bring in colors that aren't there at all. I think, however, that it is essential to understand what is there in order to pull any approach off.

[jhercilia]

Ok! what a relief. That made me feel better. Thank for the explanation. Very helpful.

[LaceyLew]

Light Logic

Learning the logic of light (as well as proportions and other “rules”) are important both to help us see what is right in front of us and to understand how to give information to the viewer that maybe isn’t in our reference. Working with photographs often means working without accurate information, and sometimes we will look at our work and not understand why it doesn’t look right. If we compare our references and our work to these rules, it often helps us to understand what we need to do to make our work convincing or what changes need to be made if there is something off.

First, let’s limit our discussion to light and shadow without considering color. We will refer to the picture of an egg.

Highlights are the lightest lights.
Cast shadows are the darkest darks.
Reflected lights are not as light as highlights.
Crest shadows are not as dark as cast shadows.

If you look at the egg critically, you will see that the transition from light to shadow is not a straight line from lightest to darkest, but rather an undulation of lights and darks with the extreme light and dark on either side. Nothing on the light side should be darker than shadow, and nothing on the shadow side should be lighter than the light side. It seems to make perfect sense when looking at an egg, but when we are confronted with a face where the nose may be casting a shadow on a lighted cheek it can become quite confusing! As artists, we can adjust what we see in our work to convey the appropriate information and this is one of the points where we may need to do so.

[LaceyLew]

Now let’s move on to color! If you’ve read Celestia’s thread, you know that the temperature of the shadow is the opposite of the temperature of the light. So, if my light is orange, my shadow will be blue. Just as the transition from lightest-light to darkest-dark isn’t a straight line, the transition in temperature isn’t a straight line either! I think that a thread I read in the Stroke of Genius forums sums it all up perfectly, and Karin Wells, who posted the thread, has kindly given me permission to copy it here! (I have slightly edited this.)

“It is OK to paint what you see, but it is much more important to paint what you know. The human eye is not always "sophisticated" or "trained" enough to observe reality and the Old Masters certainly knew this.

As a highlight transitions into a deep shadow, warm and cool tones begin to alternate. This creates each layer that defines form. The overlapping of warm and cool color is essential in building realistic form. (The terms "warm" and "cool" color are relative to the specific color used...i.e., warm and cool skin tones)

1. Highlight is cool. The lightest value, cool color paint on an object.

2. Light is warm. The next lightest value, warm color paint - and it continues to get lighter still as it approaches the area of highlight.

3. Halftone (where light and shadow meet) is cool. A mid-value, cooler color paint where light begins to turn into shadow - but can't be defined as either light or shadow.

4. Shadow is warm. A dark value, warm color paint.

5. Deep Shadow (cast shadow at the origin) is hot. Darkest value, hottest color paint.

6. Reflected light within a shadow is as close to pure color as you can make it. The reflected light should match the value of the shadow and it can be either warm or cool in color.

Below is a detail of a face by Rubens. With specific reference to the numbers above, I hope you can see the layering technique I have described. If you can begin to see this, you can begin to paint it.”

Thanks Karin! So, as our values undulate, so do our temperatures. Let’s revisit our egg again, this time in color. Do you see how the warm color of the egg in light cools to a bluish color just before it turns into shadow?

[jhercilia]

Great explanation about the tempertures and where can you expect them to be.

[Mikey]

Lacey, many thanks for posting these photos together here. What is very noticable is not just the various colours, but the way the skin of the different races reflects light. The redness in the African woman's cheeks is not what we might expect and I would assume being picked up from the environment. That would seem to happen less with an Asian skin.

Mikey

[Anita Murphy]

This is very interesting.
I'm a little confused! But I am hanging on to your every word! Thanks for this classroom!

[LaceyLew]

Hi Mikey and Anita,

Thanks for your replies!

Different ethnicities tend to have more or less blood supply that is close to the surface of the skin, so some people tend to have more of the rosy-cheek effect while others do not. And some peoples' skin is more reflective than others. It's good that you can observe all of these diferences. Just take a look at the huge differences between the african man's skin and the african woman's skin!

Anita, please feel free to ask any questions and start a discussion about anything you are confused about. Skin tones are a very confusing subject! There is so much to take into account... the light, the environment, what's under the skin, the properties of the skin itself... I am happy to discuss and clarify along the way. Also, I will try to do a re-cap of everything at the end of the next section, before we start skin tone palettes. (I should be posting this tomorrow, sorry for the wait!)

-Lacey

[Smokin]

Im really looking foward to understanding more about skin tones and for the class to contiue ,no rush just anxious :D . The thing I see myself scratching my head most about is this: I can understand highlights and the lighter values underneath, I can understand the shadows and how the loose saturation as less light hits the area, but how do I fugre out the color where light and shadows meet? Seems to me this is the hardest area to paint. maybe this and the reflected light cause I SUCK at eyeballing color. Working on it though :D

[Mikey]

Lacey, I hope I'm allowed to join in at this point. Smokin, what you willl usually have at the turn of light and shadow is the local (actual) colour of an object, or the skin. That has to be mixed on the palette. I'll often mix five colours from light to dark, lighter to cool and darker to warm, plus highlights and other colours such as reds for blood vessels under the surface of the skin. If you try to blend light to dark on the canvas, you end up undesirable colours and likely so much mud. If like me you use cool highlights and warm shadows you''ll understand that mixing the two will give a lot of greyish colour.

Mikey

[jhercilia]

I believe I read somewhere that where shadows and light meet, is always warm. Will see what Lacey says.

[Smokin]

Lacey, I hope I'm allowed to join in at this point. Smokin, what you willl usually have at the turn of light and shadow is the local (actual) colour of an object, or the skin.
Mikey

Ok, maybe thats my problem, I am chosing the wrong color for my base skin tone. And I guess thats another question I have, maybe a rule of thumb to go by it to chose your base color of the skin fron the area where the light meets shadows? Just a though, gonna look at some photos now.

[LaceyLew]

I will be back to address this question! I want to gather some visual aids for this. :D

-Lacey

[LaceyLew]

First of all, Mikey I would like to say that I have seen lots of your posts here with your work and I love your style and especially your colors. I may say some stuff that might seem to go against what you have posted, and I want you to know that in my opinion no one needs to follow an exact set of rules, especially when they know how to break the rules successfully!

To recap, at first we talked about “local color” of skin. What color is the skin, what value is it, and how saturated is it. Next we started our discussion of “light logic.” During this discussion we talked about the undulation of cool and warm tones to create form. I think in general it’s easier to grasp the highlight and deep shadow concepts, halftone area that we get confused. So let me address the light and halftone areas specifically:

As far as “local color,” I feel this most closely relates to the light area, described as #2 in the quote from Karin Wells. In the light where the highlight is not obstructing your view, you can see the skin tones pretty clearly and this is where the color on your palette will look most like a flesh color. In the light area, you can see the variations between rosy cheeks, the bluish colors around the eyes, etc. Here you will see what we talked about in the first installment. This is because light allows us to see.

Next to this but before the shadow is the “halftone,” description #3 in the quote from Karin Wells. This is described as being a cool, mid-value paint. The question is why would it be cool?

When we are painting light and shadows, we are doing it so that we can define the form. All of these layers of warm, cool, dark and light are to define form. Besides what we have looked at above, think about atmospheric perspective. Things closer to us are more saturated, things farther away tend to become more grey or blue or cool. Just by putting a warm and cool color next to each other you can give the impression that one is in front of the other.

Therefore, cooling or graying a skin tone says “I’m getting farther away.” That cool color in between the skin tones and the shadow helps define the turn that the form is taking as it dives into shadow. After all, it’s the turn of the form that causes the shadows, not just the position of the light.

It would seem that this rule would only work for one temperature of light, but as far as I can tell you can apply it in warm or cool light. Each step would just be relative to the rule.

Here I will post some examples. First, let’s go back to the good old egg. I’ve pointed out the cool halftone area (see how it’s a little blue?) and the warm shadow core. Notice also how in the shadow area towards each end of the egg the shadow even becomes cooler. The middle of the egg is closer, so it’s warmer, and the ends of the egg are farther away so they are cooler. The cool halftone area shows that the egg is turning away from the light, and the non-highlight light area of the egg is warm.

Next are 2 pictures of my very enthusiastic son :-) One is taken in natural light coming in the window, the other is incandescent light. I’ve marked where I see the cool halftones with a “C.”

[LaceyLew]

Now, here it is applied in actual paintings!

[LaceyLew]

Now I am including one of my own because I can tell you what paints I actually used. I hope my lines haven't covered up too much for you to see what I am pointing at, if so just let me know.

The halftones here are definitely a grey. On my palette, it looked grey. If I made it too dark of a value, it looked like grey dirt smudged on the face. But here, (I think, I hope!) it works to tell you that the form is turning away, it farther away from the light, but isn’t quite yet in shadow. It can be difficult to make ourselves put such garish colors on our portraits, but it works! Besides, how can we make the beautiful colors stand out if we don’t have some dull ones to compare to?

Anyway, in the light area I used mostly Venetian Red, with white, desaturated in some areas and with some blue to cool the highlights. The halftones are raw umber with white. I did not even mix it with the flesh color! I was scary to start doing this but it’s been a big step forward for me.

I’ll also include another of mine that shows even more of this grey halftone. This time the flesh tones in the light areas are Venetian Red and Burnt Sienna.

[LaceyLew]

Did I help, or make it more confusing? Or do you think I'm full of baloney? :p

There is a lot of info out there that opposes what I posted, and there will of course be times that all the rules can be thrown out the window. Please feel free to turn this thread into a discussion about any of these ideas. I would like to not only present what has worked for me, but also include other ideas that work for other people.

[Anita Murphy]

Its beginning to make sense. Though your palette has thrown me into turmoil! I had had an instinct that venetian red would be a good colour, but no-where that I had read mentioned it (thank you for agreeing with me!).
I had noticed on the egg that the just below deepest part of the shadow is very red - how does this fit in? Am I getting ahead of myself here?
And do tell your son that his face was very much appreciated in this lesson!

[Mikey]

This is a very useful thread Lacey. You've given us some good stuff. We won't disagree at any point, because I'm inclined to do things different ways myself anyway. I'm wanting to have another try at the Bouguereau flesh. One of these days, maybe I'll get there.

Mikey

[LaceyLew]

I had noticed on the egg that the just below deepest part of the shadow is very red - how does this fit in?

Good observation! Remember that the shadow is warm, and then the deep shadow is hot. The area in the shadow that is intense red is the deep shadow. You will also notice that the deep shadow is interrupted by the reflected light, which is cool in comparison. I say cool in comparison, because compared to the warm and hot shadow area above it, it is cool. But compared to the light side, it's warm! Take a look at the colors isolated in the white box... that reflected light looks much different next to white, doesn't it!

[LaceyLew]

That just reminded me of projects that I did in a color theory class. The point of the projects was to see how the colors around a color affect how we see it. We used different background colors to change the appearance of a color, and the results are something like what I have done below. The color in the middle square on both sides is our reflected light color on the eggs. Notice how on the dark red area, it seems like a lighter, greenish color. On top of the lighter greenish area, it seems like a darker, warmer color. But in reality, they are the exact same color. Furthermore, doesn't it look like a completely different color all together on the egg in the picture? :eek:

We did the project in reverse, as well: taking two different colors and making them look exactly the same by changing the background colors. Color is a crazy thing, isn't it!?!

Also, I wanted to mention for anyone that is interested, that I have a demo on my website of my painting above "Amy Pinning Her Hair." Here's the link (not sure how long it'll stay, though!): http://www.lacey-lewis.com/oils/amy_demo.htm

[Anita Murphy]

Wonderful link to your demo - don't take it off please as demos like this are SO helpful to we beginners!

[LaceyLew]

OK, here's the last round of "Light Logic" posts! (I hope you don't mind my breaking it all into seperate posts. It helps me to keep them separated.)

During the above discussion, we touched upon atmospheric perspective. I wanted to clarify this a bit. We have all heard the question “Why is the sky blue?” It is because the atmosphere scatters that white light of the sun, blue wavelengths are the shortest and are scattered and become visible. Light wavelengths from longest to shortest are red, yellow, and then blue. So, instead of thinking that the farther away something is the more blue it becomes, you can also thing of it as the farther away things get, the more they lose color: first red is lost, then yellow is lost, and finally blue. This, of course, is a bit different during sunrise and sunset where there is more atmosphere for the sun light to get through, but still keep in mind how the particles and water in the air affect the colors we see.

We also talked a bit about reflected light, and I hope the egg illustration helped with that some. Here are some things to consider when painting or drawing the reflected light (or reflected color): Take the skin itself into consideration. Some skin is more or less reflective than other skin, but none are actually as reflective as, say, a mirror. So, the light and color being reflected need to be modified to suit the skin tone, and also to suit the shadowed area as we saw with the egg. Also remember that the reflected light or color should not go outside of the value boundaries of its area: A reflected light in the shadow area should be within the shadow value range and a reflected color on the light side should be within the light value range.

The man’s head below has both reflected color from the sky and reflected color from his shirt. Note how the reflected color from the shirt is darker than we expect it to be, because it looks lighter than the surrounding area.

[LaceyLew]

Before I move on to the last part of the light logic section, I also want to mention that the portrait classroom thread on edges is a valuable read, and there was a thread in the oils forum that had to do with how to paint distant and close objects (overlapping, blurred or crisp, etc) that also has good info. If anyone has a link to that thread, go ahead and post it here, and I will post it if I can find it.

The last important light logic thing that I wanted to mention is ‘color banding’ in portraiture. Here is where the colors would be and why:

Forehead: yellow colors. Light is most often hitting the forehead the strongest in traditional portraiture lighting, and since blood vessels near the surface of the skin aren’t that apparent the forehead area would have a yellow cast to it.

Eyebrow to mouth or chin: red colors. This is due to the blood vessels in the cheeks, nose and chin and because this is the area often closest to the viewer and the center of our interest.

Chin and/or neck: bluish cast. This area is not receiving an excess of blood, nor direct light, and is not usually the center of our attention. It is also farther away from us than the cheeks and nose. Therefore, it takes on a bluish cast.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t put any red in the forehead area, or any yellow below the chin, but it’s a good set of rules that will give the viewer good information about what they are looking at. In the palette section I will discuss different colors that can be used in these areas.

[LaceyLew]

In review:

Local skin color:

Color on the color wheel
Value range
Saturation
Note the variations across the face.

Values points to keep in mind:

Highlights are the lightest lights.
Cast shadows are the darkest darks.
Reflected lights are not as light as highlights.
Crest shadows are not as dark as cast shadows.

Cool/Warm Relationships:

Highlight is cool, lightest value.
Light is warm, next lightest value.
Halftone is cool, mid-value.
Shadow is warm, dark value.
Deep Shadow is hot, darkest value.
Reflected light can be cool or warm, but is the value of shadow.
All relationships are relative!

Color Banding:

Yellow tone on forehead.
Red tone eyebrows to mouth.
Blue tone chin and neck.

I didn’t list some of the things that we went over, but I will at anyone’s request. The above are the main points that I feel are especially important in portraiture. It’s a very difficult thing to get these all balancing at once, and not every painting does or needs to include all of the above to be successful. I suggest making one of these sets of rules a focus of a painting at a time, so that you can get a feel for how to use the concepts without going crazy!

Next: Skin Tone Palettes :eek:

[Bordelon]

This is just what I needed. Thanks. Sandra

[Bordelon]

If I have a photograph pulled up in my Paint Shop Pro and I click on a color with my dropper, the location of the color shows up on the color wheel. Can I assume that if it shows up in the right half that means it is a cool color and if it shows up on the left, it is a warm color? Sandra

[Smokin]

Im a little confused with the painter color wheel myself.

[rosebard]

Hi All!! Just found out about this class! Thanks a lot Lacey what a great tutor you are. :clap: :clap: :clap: I have learned so much already. Cant wait to read more. I had read an article weeks ago that explaned about light logic, but the text was pretty difficult to understand, you made really easy for me. Though I have already learned about warm/cool light and shadows principles in Celestia excellent demo. I still had little problems to understand the part about Cool/Warm relantioships. Cant wait for the pallete installement. I am sure it will be awesome.

:wave:

[LaceyLew]

Thanks for the compliments, Bard! Hope you enjoy the rest of the thread.

Warm and cool on the color wheel: Generally speaking, colors like yellow, orange and red are warm and colors like blue, purple and green are cool. Try to think of it more like a spectrum with varying levels of warm and cool instead of strict divisions.

This is complicated more, however, by the fact that each color can be relatively warm or cool. Although we might consider blue and purple both cool colors, we might consider purple to be warm in relation to blue. Also, we might have two blues, one that we would consider cool and the other warm compared to each other.

This is essential to palette choices! Although I've seen a brand of paint or two around who are producing supposed pure colors like cyan and magenta (used in printers and can actually make all the colors in the world!) every color on your palette will lean one way or the other.

For example, if you are painting the baby with the pink colored skin, you need to use an appropriate red to make that pink. The pink of the skin comes from a cool red (leans more towards purple). If you grab a warm tube of red (leans towards orange) to try and make the color you will be let down by the orangy hue. You might try to add blue to cool the color, but orange and blue are complementary colors and you will start to make mud!

However, adding the complimentary color is a great way to cool a color in order to express a desaturated skin tone or to express distance. I will get into this more in the palette section (when I am at my own computer again, in a day or two) but if there are any more questions about the concepts sans specific paint colors then let's discuss them. It is much easier to understand palettes when the color wheel stuff is understood.

Here are a couple of visuals to help you along, and then please discuss, ask questions, etc! I have a color wheel that I have divided into the colors that are usually considered warm and cool.

Next is a visual of each of the primary colors, one leaning towards warm and one leaning towards cool. The 1st red is orange toned (warm), the next is more towards purple (cool). The first yellow is green leaning (cool), the 2nd is orange leaning (warm). The 1st blue is purple leaning, the next one is green leaning. It's really a toss up as to what blue is warm or cool, because blue is in the middle of cool and purple and green are off to either side.

[LaceyLew]

If I have a photograph pulled up in my Paint Shop Pro and I click on a color with my dropper, the location of the color shows up on the color wheel. Can I assume that if it shows up in the right half that means it is a cool color and if it shows up on the left, it is a warm color? Sandra

Hi Sandra,

I hope that my post above may have helped a bit with your question. I am a little confused about what your program is showing you there, because the arrows are in the blue area but the color is orange. I would think that has to do with it being a desaturated orange (where blue is used to desaturate it). Usually in these types of programs, there are several options for the ways it displays the palette. Maybe you could try a couple of those out to see if there is one that will land the arrows on the same color along the spectrum. (I hope that made sense... please ask if I have been vague). :)

-Lacey

[rosebard]

Hi Lacey thanks for your reply. And I do mean the words I said, the same is true to so many great WC members that help us a lot begginers to learn. So thanks to you all for the contribuitions. My portrait skills have being improving a lot ever since I start those portrait class here.

This is complicated more, however, by the fact that each color can be relatively warm or cool. Although we might consider blue and purple both cool colors, we might consider purple to be warm in relation to blue. Also, we might have two blues, one that we would consider cool and the other warm compared to each other.

That have being essentially my main problem. I started painting portrait just looking at color. For instance my first portrait, I had an orange sking tone as my base color. I tried a mix of yellow and red to get a nice orange tone. But then when I came to neutralize it, it just didnt work with ultramarine color. It got muddy. And I ddint know why. Now I am starting to get there. On my art course book I read that if we want to mix two colors, we need to have a similar undertone in each painting otherwise colors will get muddy. There are colors that are easy to see if they have a yellow undertone like cad red light, or green undertone like lemon yellow, or purple undertone like in alizarim crynson. And I guess that has being my great problem: not knowing what colors are pure, what has a warm or cool undertone. Is there a way to find that out?? I think I need to learn that and make a chart, it may help. What do you think??

Yeah I am really looking forward for the pallete part, which color is my favorite part always!!

:wave:

[LaceyLew]

Rose,

It sounds like the palette section will answer a lot of your questions! You are right when you say that the clean color mixtures depend on having the pure colors and accurate compliments. I will be presenting a few different approaches to palettes, one that deals specifically with accurate compliments!

More soon!
-Lacey

[rosebard]

Thanks Lacey, your help is very much appreciate. See you soon then!!

:)

[LaceyLew]

Here are a few color wheels/color pickers from computer programs. One you can see is clearly based on the color wheel and has a square to show where the color is on the color wheel and the strip on the side to show saturation (in computers and inks are desaturated with black. Not neccessarily so with paint!) This would help you to identify the colors location on the color wheel, it's lean towards a neighboring color, and its saturation.

Another has a color strip on the side, and a wide area where that color varies in value and saturation. This one could be used in much the same way.

The remaining one, that I think relates most to the one that Sandra posted, shows the color with its components, instead of its saturation only being expressed with black. The 3 squared express the levels of the other colors included... so the orange selected has some blue included as indicated by the square on blue.

Any one of these can work to give you information about a color you are viewing. Try to see if your programs have a selection of these color layouts to use and choose one that makes sense to you. Play around with the controls on it to see what color you end up with by changing the placement of the squares.

While this is a useful tool for understanding color, I want to mention that you shouldn't carry it over exactly into practice. The truth is that color theory and the practive of painting are different and the rules aren't all exactly the same. So, much of what is correct in theory or works with printer inks and the light on our computer screens won't exactly translate into paint. :(

[LaceyLew]

Skin Tone Palettes

For this discussion, I will only be referring to specific colors in paint. I paint in oils, but I am sure this will translate well into acrylic paints as well as into other media like colored pencil and watercolor. I work in pastel as well, but I think it is somewhat impossible to come up with a working pastel palette that can be used across skin tones because mixing is not, for the most part, done.

Also, I wanted to mention the “Virtual Palette” that is available here on the Wetcanvas forum. At the top of the page, click on “Tools” and then “Virtual Palette.”

There are approximately a billion-zillion different ways to approach the skin tone palette. I would like to discuss several different approaches and the theories behind them, and then move into talking about specific palettes and the colors in them.

In theory, you can make any color by only using red, yellow, blue, white and black. Of course, all the colors would need to be pure, which paints are generally not. One approach is to have the primaries, but have them lean towards either warm or cool tones. So, you would have a warm version of red, a warm version of yellow, and a warm version of blue or vise-versa.

Along this same theme but slightly more complex, is to have 2 of each primary, one that leans each way. This would include a warm and a cool yellow, a warm and a cool red, and a warm and a cool blue. Black would be optional. I started out with this palette myself, and I think it is a great way to begin because it helps you to understand color theory and how to mix color and you become sensitive to the differences in the warm and cool colors. I remember having Cadmium Red (warm), Alizarin Crimson (cool), Cadmium Yellow (warm), Lemon Yellow (cool), French Ultramarine Blue (red leaning) and Pthalo Blue (yellow leaning). At this point, a small paint mixing handbook is invaluable, as it will show you many mixtures that can be achieved with basic colors like these and also introduce you to a few more exotic colors.

Here are a few points to consider when using this palette (also applies across the board): To create a ‘clean’ secondary color, you want to use the primary colors that lean towards you goal color. For example, if you want to create orange, use cadmium yellow and cadmium red. If you were to use lemon yellow and/or alizarin crimson you are introducing the 3rd primary and will therefore end up with some form of brown (often referred to as mud). This can be used to your advantage in some cases, where you want a brown color. Also keep in mind that if you want a brown, you should mix warm colors and if you want a grey you should mix cool colors.

Of course, this is not a “Skin Tone Palette” per se as the colors are not geared specifically towards creating flesh tones. I do want to start the conversation here, though, and do encourage people to become familiar with these colors as they form a good base for color knowledge. I’ll return soon with another theory and palette to discuss! Feel free to discuss, share, and ask questions!

Also, if anyone knows how to add Lemon Yellow to the virtual palette, let me know.

-Lacey

[Anita Murphy]

Still glued to this. Trying to apply the theory but not sure I have the hang of it yet. I think I need to revise the egg stage! :D

[rosebard]

HI Lacey! Hi All!

So ultra is a blue the lean towards red and phtalo lean towards yellow, and ofcourse it works with alizarim (red) and lemon yellow (yellow). Now things are starting to make sense. Looking forward to more!!! :) :)

[eileenclaire]

Lacey, this is very instructive. I do have a question about the blues you mentioned. If one is red leaning and one is yellow leaning, doesn't that mean they are both relatively warm? I get very confused about this stuff.

[Anita Murphy]

Eileen - I think the one that leans towards yellow must be cooler. Not sure why but that seems more logical to me. I think mainly because I can't think of a warm green but I can see warm blues.

[rosebard]

I think it is because alizarim is consider a cool red and ultra is a warm blue relating to phato but leaning to red. I am trying to keep that in mind now. A color is not just cool or warm alone, but need to have another color to compare to.

Alizarim is red based and ultra leans to red.
Lemon yellow is yellow based and phtalo leans to yellow.
I guess that if you use alizarim and phato we would have a third color in it, which would cause it to become a muddy color.

[LaceyLew]

Sorry I've slowed down on the thread, homeschool has started! I'll keep with it at my slow little pace, though :-)

Blues: yes, technically I would say that they are both equally as warm/cool as each other, because blue is at the extreme cool side of the color wheel. Same for orange, because it is at the extreme of the warm side. It's still very important to determine the lean of the color for the purposes of mixing, so that you know to use a yellow leaning blue to produce a green or a red leaning blue to produce a purple.

Now, if we focus more on atmospheric perspective than on warm/cool, we might consider a red-leaning blue to be closer because the colors drop out in the order of red-yellow-blue with distance.

If we talk about light hitting a blue object (like an indoor lightbulb) we might choose a green leaning blue because of the influence of the warm light.

Hey, good thing people generally aren't blue! :evil:

[rosebard]

That is ok, Lacey. Take your time. We can go on slowly here no problem. It give us time to think anyway. I ordered Chris Saper book, Painting beautiful skin colors. There is another one that I am looking for to buy.It is Color choices by Stephen Quille. Chris Saper highly recomend it as a color theory book.

Looking forward for the next installment. And take easy!

:)

[LaceyLew]

Rose,

Chris Saper's book is great and I highly recommend it, although I don't have Quiller's book yet (hopefully soon!). They will be a great resource for you I am sure!

Actually, her palette is what I have been planning to present as the palette based on complementary colors. Chris Saper gave me permission to quote her, and I will do so here as a continuation of the palette discussion:

"Chris Saper's Palette

Oil colors:

Cadmium lemon (Winsor-Newton)
Cadmium scarlet (W-N)
Permanent Rose (W-N)
Alizarin Crimson permanent(W-N)
Dioxazine Violet (optional)
Ultramarine Blue (Utrecht)
Pthalo Green (Utrecht)
Thalo yellow-green* (Grumbacher)

Titanium White (Utrecht)
Ivory Black (Optional) (Utrecht)

Notes: This is what I consider to be a very limited palette. I intially learned to paint in oil from Phil Beck, who uses a basic 7-8 color palette. After working with this palette for some time, I revised it based on the color research of Stephen Quiller. Same number of colors, more attention to the accuracy of tube complements. Thalo yellow green is a color I have added every time to my palette (after writing "Painting Beautiful Skin Tones", so it doesn't appear in the text). It is a wonderful neutralizer for warm skin colors, and is of value since ITS value is equivalent to cad scarlet. If you neutralize your lighter reds with a complementary green like Pthalo or Viridian, they become so much darker, that you then need to lighten and also temperature correct the mixed hue.

As I am much more an alla prima painter than a glaze painter, I don't deal much with transparent colors. Depending on the circumstance, I might add other optional colors (like Cad Yellow light for florals, or Sap Green for landscape backgrounds), but these colors don't rountinely find their way onto my glass.

Despite my bias that "less is more", I do continue to experiment with other colors. Over the past six years, the only color I have added as a standard is the Thalo Yellow-Green. In the back of the closet, I have a box filled with hundreds of dollars of almost-new colors I will never use again. Recently I picked up John's Old Holland Naples Deep and Cobalt Violet, and will play with this pair for a bit.

The only other color I would mention is Terra Verte, which I use to tone canvas, and to under-sketch in oil. Verdaccio, without knowing it!"

I am not personally familiar with this palette, so I am not quite able to tell which color is the complement of what. Hopefully I will be able to find out for you all, or if someone here knows please do post this information.

The idea that I want to get across, though, is how you can use a palette such as this to achieve effects that we have discussed. Once you have determined the color of the skin and made that color on the palette, you can then use its accurate complement to desaturate it to the appropriate skin tone. You can also desaturate it with the complement to show distance or to describe less saturated areas on the face. Also remember the color banding, and consider adding yellow in the forehead area and some blue to the neck area. Keep your strongest colors near the cheeks and nose.

As we go along, I will discuss other colors that I am more familiar with so that I can explain more about their color bias and how to use them. I will also use the close-up of my self portrait (posted earlier in the thread) to give an example of how I have used them.

[jhercilia]

Oh, yeah. I have Saper's book. It's excellent.
Which of Quiller's book you are refering to? I have "Color Choices" and I love it.

[K Taylor-Green]

Lots of great information here. It is taking me longer to assimilate it because I am comparing oils to pastels!
I'm saving the pages to reread. And Chris Saper's book is great!

[Anita Murphy]

I have Chris's book too - she is also a WC member and very kindly answered queries I had on her palette.

[artbabe21]

Kind ladies & gentlemen....I have taken the liberty of removing a few recent posts. There is room for only one teacher in this thread & Lacey is doing an outstanding job of it.

Thanks so much Lacey for taking your time to do this demo for us. Don't worry about taking it slowly. It's quite a lot to comprehend. :)

[Dana Design]

Yahew, Lacey Lew! This is fantastic!! I'm loving this altogether way too much!

I have to paint. (whine)

[LaceyLew]

Thanks to those who have posted kind words about my efforts in this thread.

I would like to restate a few things:

Just about everything I have posted in this thread I am sure has been/ is being/ will be disputed. Artists do not all agree about a lot of issues having to do with color theory and what pigments to use, etc. I myself have really just begun to delve into these issues and find it all fascinating. My goal is to present as many views as possible, especially where the palette is concerned. I do not personally feel that there is a right or a wrong palette as I have seen many amazing works of art created from a variety of color combinations. I want to share what I have learned here with the hope that others will benefit and I welcome open and friendly discussion about the views I have posted. Please feel free to provide useful insight and information here.

That said, I am including in the following some of the information that was posted here that I think adds to the discussion about palettes:

I have been referring to the palette that I think has been in common use for quite some time, where the primaries are described as red, yellow, blue. If you take a look back at the color wheels from the image editing programs, you will see that the squares do not line up along these primaries. The primaries shown here are magenta, cyan, and yellow. With these three pure complements and black and white, you should be able to produce any color on the spectrum. Using this color wheel may help to find more accurate complements. I have seen a couple of paint sets based on the magenta, cyan, yellow combination I am not at all familiar with using them and am not familiar with what their equivalents would be in traditional paint colors (although I have seen magenta). Again, if anyone knows of good, accurate complements or recognizes the complement sets in Chris Saper’s palette (above) please post that information here. Basing your palette on pure color complements is one approach to take and obviously works for some people!

On the other hand, many artists do not use complements to desaturate, cool, or reduce intensity of their skin tones. Other options include finding a more accurate color of paint (like earth tones) or adding neutral grays to the color to be altered. One of these artists is Marvin Mattleson (http://www.fineartportrait.com/) . Again, I am not a student of Mattleson’s and have not personally used his palette. I am not in a position to explain his palette in particular or how to use it, but I wanted to mention it here to show an approach that is quite different from the ones we have already discussed, like Chris Saper's (http://www.chrissaper.com/) .

It is very advantageous to review the palettes of many artists, and there is a great variety out there.

[LaceyLew]

Hello all,

Here is another quote from Chris Saper, where she outlines the accurate complements to the colors in her palette. She also lists a NEW palette that she uses:

"Let me do my best here...I am putting together as best I can the charts from "Color Choices" (1989) and Steven's recent color wheel (2000). If there has been a reprinting of "Color Choices" It may use the newer information.

Cadmium lemon (Winsor-Newton) -- Mauve (Holbein)
Cadmium scarlet (W-N)- Winsor Blue (W-N Pthalo Blue)
Permanent Rose (W-N)- Veridian Green (W-N)
Alizarin Crimson permanent(W-N)- Permanent Green Deep (no brand available)
Dioxazine Violet (optional)
Ultramarine Blue (Utrecht)- Cadmium Orange (W-N)
Pthalo Green (Utrecht)- Alizarin Carmine
Thalo yellow-green* (Grumbacher)- no brand available

Titanium White (Utrecht)
Ivory Black (Optional) (Utrecht)

And although this is bit late and probably $5 short, I have changed my palette since to more closely resemble Bill Whitaker's/Daniel Greene's. I still use the Cad lemon periodically, but all the other above colors are still on my daily palette. I have added a few, mainly earth colors:

Asphaltum
Transparent Earth Red
Raw Sienna
Yellow Ochre
Raw Umber
Gamblin's flesh
Gamblin's Portland Gray Medium.
Flake White (which I use predominantly)
Caput Mortuum Violet
Studio Products' Pyrrolo Red"

[LaceyLew]

Chris also mentoined that I have the orders that colors drop out in landscapes in the wrong order. They drop out yellow first, then red! :eek:

I am attempting to re-organize my thoughts after a long week! I hope to be back ASAP with a clear outline about palettes.

-Lacey

[Rosic]

Lacey... I am reading this thread for the first time and have learned so much! You have gone beyond the call of duty and I appreciate your hard work on this class. Your visuals are great and enhance this very informative thread.

Surprised that this thread doesn't have 5 stars by now... ;)

Thanks again!

Bernie

[Rosic]

Guess my rating vote was the magic number needed... :D
Bern

[artbabe21]

Guess my rating vote was the magic number needed... :D


Thanks Bern.....I voted again this morning but I think it only takes one vote from each member....so thanks for getting it over the top where it belongs...5 stars!! :) yahooooooooo! These classrooms are so valuable to WC!

[LaceyLew]

Thanks Bernie and Cathleen!

Maybe I shoulda' voted, too? :evil:

I made a brief outline for the skin tones part and should be posting something coherent this evening. I had such a busy week that I forgot what my whole point was!

-Lacey

[rosebard]

Hi Lacey and all other subies!! :wave:

I am finally back online. After few days without my dear computer. :(

You know I think I should take a day in week to vote on threads. It sees odd but I love theses classes and I often forget that there is a system to vote. Sorry Lacey you really deserve those stars. You are doing a great job here.

Well now that I am back and I am sitting back waiting for the next interesting post from Lacey. :)

:wave:

[LaceyLew]

Hi Rose! I am glad you are back.

OK, I remember what my whole point was! I wanted to show some different approaches to choosing palette colors. I also wanted to show ways to use all of the observations you’ve made (skin color, shadows, light logic, etc) to help you decide what colors to lay down. I will try to express that.

So, we’ve talked about Chris Saper’s palette (the first one). It consists mainly of what one might refer to as “jewel tone” colors; primary and secondary colors like red, blue, yellow, purple, etc as well as white and maybe black. Here are some colors we have discussed that are primary and secondary colors:

Cadmium lemon, Lemon Yellow, Cadmium Yellow.
Cadmium scarlet, Permanent Rose, Alizarin Crimson, Alizarin Carmine, Cadmium Red
Winsor Blue/Pthalo Blue, Ultramarine Blue,
Pthalo Green, Thalo yellow-green (Grumbacher)
Dioxazine Violet, Cadmium Orange

Another approach is actually illustrated by her 2nd palette where she is using mainly earth tones. I looked at dictionary.com and I found this definition: earth tone n. Any of various rich warm colors with tones of brown. Earth tones are generally umbers, siennas, ochres, and I believe anything containing the word “earth.”  I believe colors like Indian Red, Venetian Red and Terre Verte are also considered earth tones and are common colors on a skin tone palette.

Since skin tones are rarely a pure color, we would need to use complements to desaturate a primary or secondary color out of the tube. With earth tones, it might not be necessary to do this and in fact I find that I often am able to use color out of the tube or with the addition of white. This is especially useful where a pastel palette is concerned due to the lack of mixing that is possible with pastels. I only have a small set myself, but find myself constantly using the earth tone section of the box (burnt sienna, raw umber, yellow and gold ochre, caput mortuum, red iron oxide).

Of course, there is no reason why one cannot use any of the colors listed above in a single palette.

That said, I will attempt to go through the steps of observation and talk about palette possibilities along the way. I will also show one of my paintings and talk about the colors that I used in it. Maybe, I will even end up making a nice chart that will give some info about individual colors! (At least ones that I have experience with, but anyone can feel free to add their knowledge as well.)

[LaceyLew]

In the above post, "Viridian" should not be included in the earth tone list. I don't see a way to edit it though!

[Dana Design]

In the above post, "Viridian" should not be included in the earth tone list. I don't see a way to edit it though!

I edited out the Viridian! :)

[LaceyLew]

Thank you! :D

[LaceyLew]

I got my color of “Color Choices” (by Stephen Quiller) today and it’s very informative! I like his color wheel and how it’s arranged by actual pigments. So, before I move on, here is a chart of my own to refer to (very much helped by the info in this book):

Pigment Name-Description-Complement-Complement Description

Cad Yellow Light – Primary – Ultramarine Violet – Secondary Purple
Lemon Yellow – Leans slightly towards green – Dioxazine Purple – Slight red lean
Cad Yellow Deep – Yellow that leans to orange – Between Ult Blue and Ult Violet
Cad Orange (Cad Yellow Orange, Permanent Orange) – Yellow Orange – Ultramarine Blue – A Blue that leans toward violet
Cad Scarlet (Cad Red Orange) – Secondary Orange – Pthalo Blue (Windsor Blue) – Primary blue (IMO, slight green lean)
Cad Red Medium – Red leaning orange – Green Blue (Pthalo Turquoise) – a green that leans toward blue
Permanent Rose (Perm Alizarin Crimson) – Primary Red (IMO, blue leaning) – Viridian Green – Secondary Green
Magenta – A Red Leaning Violet – Permanent Green Light – A green that leans toward yellow

Earth Colors:

Naples Yellow – slightly neutral yellow that leans to orange
Yellow Ochre – desaturated yellow-orange
Raw Sienna – another earthy-yellow-orange, more red than Yellow Ochre
Burnt Sienna – neutral near orange – I love it with Ult Blue
Red Oxide – reddish orange
Raw Umber – very neutralized, yellow orange lean
Burnt Umber – still very neutral, orange
Indian Red – on the Quiller wheel it is between red & orange red, but I find it fairly violet in tone.
Mars Violet – neutral red leaning toward violet
Terre Verte (Chromium Oxide Green) – neutral yellow green
Venetian Red – I’d say it’s a slightly neutral red, warmer than Aliz Crimson but not yet orange

Whew! Hopefully that will be easy to refer to as we go along. I just thought it would help to be able to refer to where the colors are on the color wheel, and to have a list to refer to if you are unfamiliar with these particular pigments (I do not have experience with many of these colors!).

[LaceyLew]

OK! So, let’s start at the beginning. Before you paint/draw, go through the list that we made above and make all of your observations about skin tone (I am excluding all compositional considerations here). Then, go through and think about how this relates to the pigments you will use.

Decide what color the skin is: pink, orange, yellow orange? Is it light or dark in value? How saturated is it? You may want to start with the color you feel the skin leans towards, and then bring it to the correct value. From here, you can desaturate it either to match the skin tone, show variations on the face, or to show distance.

If you have a cool, pink skin tone like the baby, you could start off with a color like Azal Crimson and lighten it to the correct value. Then, you could use its complement, viridian, to desaturate it for areas around the mouth and that are off in the distance. Or, if you are working with an orange skin tone like the woman below who, I’d say, has a red-orange skin you could start off with a Cad Red to a Cad Scarlet and desaturate with green-blue like Pthalo Turquois or Cerulean Blue.

You can also use earth tones in the place of desaturated cool color. You might consider Indian Red for the baby and Red Oxide for the woman. You can still use a complement to desaturate more, if need be. Others use neutral grays to desaturate colors. The advantage to this is that you can choose a gray that is the same value as your starting color so that your color won’t change value as you desaturate, and the saturation can be easier to control since it happens slower than when using a pure complement.

Think about where you will use more saturated color, and where you will use more desaturated color. Keep in mind the value points that we discussed before while you think about the warm/cool relationships that happen between light and shadow. Use the flesh color in the light areas, and cool or desaturate it for the halftone. You could also use an earth tone for the desaturated area instead, which I often do. The highlight should also be cool, or desaturated, but nearly white.

Shadows are less saturated than the lights, but are warm and then hot in the deep shadow. If I were using the pure colors (which I usually do not) then I might start by desaturating the flesh color (keeping in mind the appropriate value) and adding warm colors as necessary. For earth tones, I find that Burnt and Raw Umber both make a great base for the shadow as they are both warm. Raw umber usually needs a red added to it to be warm enough for the shadow and/or deep shadow and Cadmium Red does this nicely.

Karin Well’s thought for reflected light are to mix pure complements and then lighten to the correct value. The reflected light can be warm or cool. I always try to keep in mind the temperature of the source of the reflected light to guide me in choosing the color or and warm or cool lean of the reflected light: is it coming from a white wall, a red shirt, or his/her own adjacent skin?

On top of all this, remember the color banding! Yellow Ochre and Raw Sienna are great yellow tones to use or add to your flesh mixture for the forehead. You might also consider adding another yellow that is already in your palette for that particular painting, desaturated as needed. Keep your most saturated colors on the cheeks and nose and maybe the chin. Depending on what you see on your subject in relation to the effect of blood vessels near the skin’s surface, consider adding a touch of red if it isn’t already the base of your skin tone. And finally, cool down or add a blue tone to the chin to neck area. You can use a desaturated skin tone for this, or a cool, desaturated earth tone on your palette, or add a touch of a blue especially if it is already on your palette. Then, keep in mind that colors desaturate as they get farther away (think the far side of the face in ¾ view, or the sides of the face in full view).

I guess it’s like juggling! Like I said, try to use one set of new “rules” at a time and see how you like them and how they impact your work. Add one new rule at a time if need be. I have attempted to set this all up sort of as a step-by-step of what to consider although it all happens at once in the end and maybe that will help, too.

I also wanted to mention that I don’t have any experience with tubed flesh tones, but I imagine that you would alter them the same way I have described doing so with the base flesh tones above.

Next, I will go through one or two of my own paintings and show where I’ve tried to use some of these rules and tell you just what colors I used.

[LaceyLew]

It just occurred to me that some might also be thinking, “What colors should I choose to put on my palette as a set?” Of course, I think you should use just what colors you need! This should be led by the observations we used above. But, we still want to consider color schemes and the like, so I will put a little aside here of my thoughts on the subject.

Some artists brag about the amount of different individual colors that they put on their palette, others show how you can achieve great results with just 2 colors, and of course you can in theory make all colors just from the 3 primaries.

Again, I am leaving out the issue of composition as we are focusing on flesh tones. But, when deciding what colors to use for the palette I would look to the rest of the composition for usable colors. For example, using a background color to desaturate a flesh tone in order to help it recede is a great idea because it will relate it to the background and promote unity. Use this same technique when painting non-flesh objects in the composition… always ask if there is a color already on the palette you can use. If you need a color not there, can it be mixed from colors already on the palette?

Generally speaking, you should be able to get along with a red, a yellow and a blue. Since we are talking about flesh tones and the colors are usually on the warm side, you may want to include 2-3 warm reds to oranges and a yellow and a blue. If you are working with earth tones, you could use a red leaning earth tone, an orange leaning tone, a yellow leaning tone, and a blue or a cool earth tone.

I find it very difficult to use a whole palette of unfamiliar colors, so try introducing colors into your palette on color at a time. This way you get to know them individually and in relation to and reaction with colors you already know.

[Bordelon]

I have been printing your lesson and have been trying to apply it in a painting I am doing. I think, in general, I have been fairly successful. I have many questions, but the one I am having a problem with right now is using the "hot" color for the deepest shadow. I wish you could explain that a little more. Thanks. Sandra

[LaceyLew]

I have been printing your lesson and have been trying to apply it in a painting I am doing. I think, in general, I have been fairly successful. I have many questions, but the one I am having a problem with right now is using the "hot" color for the deepest shadow. I wish you could explain that a little more. Thanks. Sandra

Hi Sandra,

Maybe you could post your work so far here or PM me with it so that I can offer you more specific help. Later today I should also be posting a tour through one of my own paintings and maybe that will help as well. I will try to explain the shadow part specifically there.

In the meantime, keep in mind that you want the deep shadow to be hot, but since it is in the shadow it is desaturated. Therefore, you would not for example use a pure red from your palette, but a desaturated red. Also, if you are having any specific questions about this, let me know (if you are wondering specifically about placement, color, temperature, etc.)

-Lacey

[Rosic]

Lacey... just when I think this thread can't get any better...
WHAM...
you give us more.

I'm a sponge absorbing as much as you'll give me... I'm amazed by all the info!

THANKS!

Is there a 10 star button any where on the site I can click?... ;)
Bern

[LaceyLew]

Lacey... just when I think this thread can't get any better...
WHAM...
you give us more.

I'm a sponge absorbing as much as you'll give me... I'm amazed by all the info!

THANKS!

Is there a 10 star button any where on the site I can click?... ;)
Bern

:o Gosh, thanks Bernie! I appreciate the encouragement.

Really, I think it's only fair that I try to share the information here that I have gained from others posting, writing, and sharing their knowledge. So many artists are so generous and helpful, and where would we be without them? :)

-Lacey

[Anita Murphy]

Lacey - I too am becoming spongelike though I am beginning to wonder if I am at full absorption level. At what point does too much theory happen?

I was looking at the portraits I am painting. OK so the light is cool, so I need warm shadows. The skin is peaches and cream tones so more orangy red than bluey red. I get that far. But then I get swamped by the reflected light versus the highlights, especially as I am not sure I have any reflected light. Do you always have reflected light????? My mind is boggling slightly. :confused:

[LaceyLew]

Nope, you certainly don't always have reflected light. There needs to be something to do the actual reflecting nearby, and if there is not then you will not generally have any or much reflected light.

You can, though, try to look very closely to see if there is any tidbit of light being bounced onto the neck from the chest/shoulders or if there is any reflected light bounced onto the side of the nose or downward facing planes of the eye socket/browbone. If you have a digi reference, try changing around the levels or brightness/contrast settings and take a good look. If it is something you want to practice specifically, have your model hold a piece of white foamboard at a desired angle as you paint or photograph them.

Sometimes this reflected light will be predominant, sometimes it may be non-existant. But it is worth looking for!

It is all a lot to take in and a lot to juggle at one time. I find it helps to just focus on a couple of aspects at a time to get used to them. You might even try following the steps in order, only painting using the rules of the first group or so and then adding the next rules later in the painting.

[Rosic]

Sometimes this reflected light will be predominant, sometimes it may be non-existant. But it is worth looking for!

So true... if it is not there sometimes it is good to exercise your artistic license and include it (not in all cases)... it adds so much more depth to the form of a subject IMHO.

Bernie

[LaceyLew]

I am doing my best to recall exactly the colors that I used here, and for the most part I do remember but a few details are slightly fuzzy! Here is the palette used, as I remember it (all W&N brand):

Venetian Red
Burnt Sienna
Raw Umber
Yellow Ochre
Cadmium Red
French Ultramarine Blue
Prussian Blue (like a slightly desaturated Pthalo Blue)

Ivory Black (maybe, maybe not)
Titanium White

I really haven’t talked about white during this thread, have I? I only have personal experience with Titanium and Zinc White and am not all that sensitive to the difference between them. As I understand it, Titanium is opaque and Zinc is transparent. Flake white and its alternative(s) and Cremnitz I also hear as popular. Try some out, if you are so inclined.

For the light areas (local color) of the flesh tones, I used Venetian Red lightened with white. In receding areas, such as the edge of the cheek to our right and the eye socket on the right I added a little Raw Umber to desaturate it some. Raw Umber is not a complement of Venetian Red, but it is a pretty desaturated color and reads as cooler than the Venetian Red due to its lack of saturation and content of colors on the cool side of the color wheel. Look for other desaturated areas where the forehead meets the bridge of the nose and the area between the chin and lower cheek on the lit side of the face.

I allowed the Venetian Red to be strongest along the edges of the bridge of the nose (area close to the viewer), cheeks (close and blood near skin surface) and a bit on the chin. The lightest areas (highlights) are mostly white with barely a touch of Raw Sienna and Ultramarine Blue in them. Raw Sienna and Ultramarine Blue are complements, thus the highlight reads as cool because of the content of the blue and its desaturated nature. Remember that all the cool-warm relationships we outlined are relative to each other, not absolutes. The light area on the arm to our right contains a lot of Raw Sienna lightened with white.

In the halftone areas I’ve used sometimes a mixture of Venetian Red and Raw Umber (with white to the correct value) and other times I have used the Raw Umber and white alone. The lightest area on the eye to brow of the left side and the halftone on the cheek are the mixture, and you can see the plain Raw Umber with white near the mouth on the left. You will also notice it on both arms.

The shadows are a mixture of Raw Umber, Cadmium Red, and a little white in some areas only. Cadmium Red is a very warm-hot color, and the Raw Umber desaturates it enough to be acceptable as a shadow color. Remember, shadows are desaturated in comparison to lights because there is not enough light to see a lot of color. In a couple areas, like the shadowy jaw, I have some reflected light or other shadow areas that are getting a little bit of light. These are a slightly lightened version of the Cadmium Red/Raw Umber mixture, but with a bit more lean towards the red. If you can look very closely (open the close-up on your computer and zoom in if you need to) you will see some shadow cores (dark shadow leaning towards the red) on the shadowed side of the nose near the nostril, under the bottom lip, and the bottom of the chin. There’s also some in the cast shadow from the hair on the forehead.

You can also see the banding here. In the lighted area on the forehead (not the shadow… remember the yellow is mostly because it’s usually close to the light source) I have used Yellow Ochre with white, with a tad of the Venetian Red added next to the half tone but not before. The strongest reds are across the middle of the face where the attention is and the blood flow is, and then I have added blue paint in the neck. Only, I can’t remember if I used the Ultramarine or the Prussian Blue! I am pretty sure that it was the Ultramarine, just not positive. The shadow area here on the neck is also not as saturated with red as the shadows on the face.

The hair (again!) is mostly Venetian Red. The areas that look black is actually where French Ultramarine Blue has been added! White was added for lights on the hair. The same scheme was used for the seat. I used colors already in the palette to help the unity of the painting, and the seat and hair color are meant to balance one another.

The blue of the background is again French Ultramarine Blue mixed with Burnt Sienna, but this time there is very little white added and the blue is dominating. The desaturation helps the background to recede. This same combination is used in the eyes, with more Sienna around the edges to create the near-black line around the iris. (lips were Ult Blue/Venetian Red/white)

The blue of the dress is based with the Prussian Blue. This is another area where my memory is the slightest bit fuzzy. I know I used the Prussian Blue, and only very little white for lighter areas, but I am not sure if the darker areas are just pure Prussian or Prussian mixed with Ivory Black. The same for the embroidery on the dress.

Well, brings me to the end of what I have outlined to cover in this thread. I am happy to answer any questions that anyone has or clarify anything. Let me know if there is something that you feel I left out or didn’t explain well. Also, feel free to post work here that you have questions about. I’ll do my best to help!

[rosebard]

:wave: Hi Lacey!! I am planning to paint from this reference I took from my son a week ago. It was taken about 1 pm. I did some study with the color in photoshop, just not sure now how to apply it with paints. Any thougts before I mess around with my paints!! :) I often have problem choosing a palette for opaque painting for the skin color, I always seem to be so insecure about it and my first portrait was a disaster because of the colors. And that usually starts to choose which red and yellow to start with. Then the color to desaturate the base color. I want my flesh to look more convincing and nice but dont seem to work well my way up to it.

Any thoughts most welcome! :) :wave:

[LaceyLew]

Hi Rose,

I think you have done a nice break-down of your skin tones! That should help you a lot along the way. You've already noticed that your son has a warm, orange-red skin tone that is somewhat desaturated. I would begin with a color like this for his skin tones, maybe a cadmium scarlet or a cadmium red and desaturate with it's complement or with an umber. Also, try to be sensitive to the areas in his face that are a little more pink, like near the cheek and nose. Here is would bring in some Venetian Red or another cool red. For the half-tones, notice the areas where the form turns and cools or desaturates: you can see these areas especially near the temple and chin between the light and shadow areas.

Let us know how it goes!

-Lacey

[rosebard]

Thanks Lacey for the support. Yes I look forward to share my next efforts on it here.

[rosebard]

Hi Lacey and classmates!! Here I am to show my first mess with the colors mixing for skin tone. Dont mind to comment on proportions really because I am not bothering to refine this color sketch at all. It was done on a pretty old reused canvas (I gessoad the back, so the texture is eek).

I used cadmio red medium, soft white mix, some orange cadmio here and there on my mixtures and a green called vessie, it is quite similar to sap green but leans more torwards a dark green.

I am posting the pallete. I mixed the red, orange and desaturated a little for half tone. A portion of it I added lots of white to make the lighter tone (here now I see lacey that you suggested a cool red for the nose and chin... uhmm I used the same base mixture but very light) What I tried to do what to match the study I did in photoshop. So my mixture was to match those that I found with the drop tool. I did this disregarding the cool/warm variations on light logic lesson. On some places I used the green desaturated with the complement to a more grey color to recede some places. It is still a bit confused but I am trying to work in sections here to get the practice with the colors.

After hearing from you here with some critics and comments on what is missing or what I did not do right, I can move to the section point of the classroom that is apply the light logic and ofcourse this time I will work on a better support. Hope the all thing work.

Thanks Lacey for allowing us to post this here and to discuss the subject even further. :clap: :cool:

:wave:

BTW: is any other learner of skin color gooing to post their efforts here?? It would be really nice.

[LaceyLew]

Hi Rose!

You are doing very well mixing the skin tones here. I like the color that you have and the desaturated versions are looking great, too.

I would suggest checking your values. In comparison to your reference, the painting is too light overall in value. Don't be afraid to use darker color! To aid in this, I would also suggest using a medium valued background. This will help you to judge the relative light or darkness of your skin tones.

Looking good! Thanks for posting your work here! :cat:

[Pars]

Lovely work, Rose. I can see a huge leap forward with this portrait of your son; beautifully done. I really like how you've shown your palette colours!

If I can figure out how to get all my computer issues sorted I might join you in posting some work (but I am slower than molasses, as they say).

And the tutorial is sensational, and I didn't kiss and tell but I gave you more than 5stars early on :D

[rosebard]

Hi Lacey!! Thanks for the suggestions. That is exactly what I was looking for to know.

Thanks Pars! Please do come and join. Will be a lot fun messing up with the colors.

Ok, This week I will work on the underdrawing on a good canvas that is already ready with the smooth gesso layer. Then, I can start thinking of a serious portrait work on it. I will pay attention also to the logic of light lesson to apply it as accurately as possible.

Thanks for the help and for seeing it.
Rose

[LaceyLew]

Yes, do join in Pars! Thanks for stopping in.

I look forward to this weeks work, Rose. :cat:

[Adair_P]

Excellent thread Lacey..... thank you ror all your hard work. I've learned a lot from you.

[LaceyLew]

Thanks, Pauline!

Great work on your website, by the way!

[terence p]

thank you for putting together this very informative lesson. It had to be a lot of hard work but certainly appreciated. I have learned a lot from it.

[Lorrainejoy]

I am trying to soak up all of this wonderful information. I have been struggling with skin tones for ages. thanks for the demo. Lorraine

[Silver]

This is the best thing on Wet Canvas ever. The information is invaluable and given in a simple fashion. Even I can take it in.ha ha ha I admire the dedication which you have shown to help us in this area.

[artbycecilia]

Lacey, Great thread, I've been following your every word, and even jotted specifics down in my notebook to study in my off hours. I saw some people seem a little confused at times, and thought of an old painting I did sometime ago. (I was out of commission for awhile, but I'm getting back in)

I hope you don't mind me posting it, but I thought it would be helpful to some people. It really show's the values in raw color.

http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/30-Dec-2005/72819-Woman.jpg

[Johnnie]

Hi all

Looking at the painting and then the palette I would suggest that one be changed to be the same as the other..

Mixing palette instead of on clear glass or plastic or whatever it is would be better served if the palette was of a similar background as where the paint is going to go .. I see greyish colour on the support so I would mix my paints on a greyish support.
The Reason: You see what you get.. When you mix your paint on palette similar in colour to the support of the canvas then you be getting the EXACT colour onto the portrait..Not so using a clear palette then putting paint onto a grey support. It WILL look different.

That is one of the reasons you see wood palettes on the brownish side.. Painters paint the support to a brownish tone then use a brownish wood palette to mix their paints..
It will look the same when moved over to the canvas..

As we know, we all just hate to use a WHITE support always fighting the glare of the white support.
I personally prefer to use a palette of wood close to the colour of my underpainting. Be it a portrait,still life, landscape etc etc.. Make for much more accuracy of mixing to what I wish to achive.. I have not seen this technique to often on WC.. For me its the only way.
It try to do this with my acrylic paintings also

Nice start.

Johnnie