help with skin tones

[ncsnoangel]

I'm having a horrible time with these skin tones, esp. the shadows. I feel they are too dark and look horrible. I've attempted this piece 3 times. I really need help. any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

[MikeN]

Hi angel,

For starters you might try yellow ochre in the lighter areas, and burnt sienna in the midtones and burnt umber in the shadows. After that you might need to add some cooler greys and a muddy green here or there. Can you post your most recent try?

Also, if you have photoshop you can use the eyedrop tool to select any random area. Double click the color box to see what hue, saturation and value the colors are. This might not be a great conversion tool to paint, but you might be started at what hue an ambiguous area might be.

good luck,

Mike

[Deborah Secor]

I suggest you go look at the work of Morris T. Howard, who is a member here. He has done some wonderful pastels that could show you all kinds of approaches to this skin color.

One of his pastels:


Do a search on his user name and look at some of his other pastel threads, along with his oil paintings.

Edited to add the suggestion to look at Barb Noonan's work, too! Like this one


Barb's web site: http://www.morninnoonannight.com/ Look at all the COLORS she uses!


Deborah

[Donna A]

Originally Posted by ncsnoangel

I'm having a horrible time with these skin tones, esp. the shadows. I feel they are too dark and look horrible. I've attempted this piece 3 times. I really need help. any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Hi, ncsnoangel! What I'm missing when I look at this portrait are any cool colors---particularly some lovely versions of blues, no matter how low in intensity! What I see are mainly lighter and darker warms---and you might be very delighted to see the effects that some cools will have. Sometimes they will add a dimension that can give some significant form which will 'take some of the pressure off' of the work the shadows need to do.

The 'blues' would be playing off of one major plane, in almost all 'normal' cases of lighting situation. Deborah shared two really good sources for you to check out. Look for those 'blues' in their works.

Also---look for any reflected lights in the shadow area. If you are painting this from a photo, photos toooo often close up the more shadowed areas and just go too dark, loosing any natural color that is living within the shadows and the play of light. Very best wishes! Donna ;-}

[ncsnoangel]

this is what I've gotten so far. It is 8 x 10 on gray stonehenge.

[WC Lee]

I think using tinted raw sienna or tinted burnt sienna for the high lights, burnt sienna for the mid-tones and burnt umber/ultramarine blue for the shadows might do well for this. I am only guessing as I would need to actually paint the subject to decide which colors would work best.