Home Forums Explore Subjects Portraiture How do you paint realistic hair?

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  • #983353
    DaveTooner
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        Hi,

        When I see paintings of the Old Masters’ I’m amazed at the way they do hair. It’s so fine. Almost looks as if they painted it a hair at a time. Could anyone give me some idea of how this can be done?

        Thanks,

        #1011215
        MarciaGayle
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            I don’t know how others do hair but for me…I like to get several dabs of different color hues right together on the pallette and then using a wet brush dip into all 3 or so and brush on, after I have the background colors so to speak, then I dry brush over the top at the highlights areas with the same and maybe a little lighter colors on top of that.
            -Marcia

            #1011213
            DaveTooner
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                Thanks Marcia, that makes a lot of sense. I’ll give it a try.

                #1011214
                jocelynsart
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                    I think with hair, you need to look at the large shapes first. There is hair that is nearer the light and hair deeper in. Once you establish the lighter and darker shapes, you can begin to go in and refine the details. Eventually, you can get into some deliberate single hairs and suggestion of single strands. Thsi will give hair depth.
                    I normally start all dark hair with a burnt sienna monochrome. I try to leave any basic light areas. Then I start building up darks using mixes of the contrasting colors with the sienna to create rich darks. Once that is done, I will go in and either scrub back thin sectins and strands if it is watercolour and layer in lights over darks if it is acrylic or oil. Generally, I make sure I know where my lightest areas are and I do not go past my first or second layer with darks in there. Oil one can also scrub back, with a thinner. I always make sure the edges of the hair have loose strand suggestions so it does not look like a cap.
                    Blonde or light hair I will start with a reddish ochre if it is on the red side or I just leave alot of the paper or canvass showing and drop in an ochre mix to build up sections. I then will get into mixing some green into my sienna to get that ashy blonde colour. The darkest areas I tend to get into purpley browns. I work light to dark leaving white of the surface where needed. With blonde hair, less is more and a few defining hairs will give it dimension.
                    The other thing I often do is take the skin tones into the head quite far. Easily one can scrub back into the hairline on the forehead and have you darker skin tones go into the hair a bit so it also does nto look liek a cap. All this adds dimension to hair in the end.
                    Alot of success with hair is giving the illusion of single strands. It took me many years of trial and error to get it down to where I was happy with my results.
                    Joss

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