How I Mix Flesh Tones in Watercolor
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- Опубліковано 12 кві 2018
- Since my last watercolor portrait video was so well received, I decided it was time to talk about my mixing recipes for flesh tones in watercolor. So many ways to mix flesh but these approaches have worked well for me.
Colors Used:
(I've included alternate color choices in parentheses, but they're by no means the only choices. Match visually to any colors you might have. You'll find color charts to any paint line online. There is a lot of flexibility in this family of colors so exact matches aren't required)
Indian Yellow (Gamboge)
Transparent Yellow Oxide (Yel. Ochre, Raw Sienna)
Quinacridone Gold (Orange Iron Oxide)
Pyrrol Orange (Azo Orange)
Quinacridone Red (Pyrrol Red)
Quinacridone Magenta (Quinacridone Rose, Perm. Aliz. Crimson)
Dioxazine Purple (Cobalt Violet, Quinacridone Violet)
VanDyke Brown (Burnt Umber, Red Iron Oxide + Sepia)
Neutral Tint (Moonglow)
Paynes Gray (Ultramarine + Red Iron Oxide or Burnt Sienna)
Qor Color Chart - www.qorcolors.com/products/wa...
M. Graham Color Chart - mgraham.com/wp-content/uploads...
Daniel Smith Color Chart - www.jjcindustries.com/wp-conte...
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Thank you SO SO SO much for covering dark skin here! Too often I see beginner artists simply lighten brown skin instead of observing the color variety - and many resources on skin simply mentioning dark skin as a side note. Much appreciated!
Believe it or not, this is the FIRST video I have seen on how to mix flesh tones. I have done many sketches of faces but I have been reluctant in attempting to paint them. Now I feel equipped enough in making that attempt. I also feel that with practice I will get better at blending. Thank you for doing this video. I have learned so much from you over the last year. Now, I feel inspired to sit and try portraits. Cheers!
LOL Thank you for this it will help me in my Native American Artwork. I'm an acrylic artist, but you're teaching me Watercolors! Becoming a Patreon this week. Might suggest using reference photos with less makeup. Found it actually harder to learn drawing models with makeup. Some are so much that it takes away from the character and interest. But I guess it works for general skin hues. Thanks!
So well explained and comprehensive. Invaluable!
See this is why I love watercolour, with just a few basic colours you can get such a wide array of other colours. Watercolour is so versatile :)
I just want to thank you for all your videos, I feel like watching you really helped me with improving my watercolor skills.
Thanks for another great, information packed video Steve. This is another that i will have to watch again.... and again.
Exactly the type of examples I was looking for in how to develop flesh tones using watercolor. Really great job. I watch your videos often and learn a lot as well as enjoy my time with you.
Yes quinacridone rose and Indian yellow! I found that out through trial and error. It’ looks so lively and glowing! I also like to use a colour called ‘maya blue’ which is a deep toned down terquoisey blue. It is great for shadows. Or a violet brown for shadows as well. These are all the colours I have discovered for skin tones! Makes me feel skilled. A Wonder Woman I did used the colours I listed. I find you want muddy/dirty mixes for skins. I don’t have the quinacridone gold, makes me want some for darker skin tones seems useful. I also don’t have the pyrrol orange but I do have pyrrol red which I love and use for ruddy skin and blush and lips, etc. However for me skin looks better when I add white and make it a bit more opaque! *gasp the horror* but for me I tend to think it looks way more like real skin than translucent washes. The colours are effected as well by the light and the colours of objects nearby creating reflected light. I tend to also like gouache and opacity but each painting is it’s own thing and I like variety and mixed media. Anyways Great video!
I have watched several videos that teach how to mix all skin tones. Very well done. This is a keeper! I understand your way. It really isn't as hard as I thought.
Great instructional video! Everyone else seems to start talking about the colors they're using at first and then just start grabbing colors willy nilly and not explaining anything.
Great job!
Of course we can all dig up our own reference photos but some people won’t. So I will mention that all 4 of the reference photos appear to be studio lit reducing shadow. I will proceed to examine the differences in range of face color in a face in different types of lighting. Thank you Steve. I really enjoyed this.
Thank you, thank you for making such a wonderful video on skin tones. This is going to help me immensely in my portrait painting.
Thanks Steve. So timely for me. I've come back to transparent watercolors and attempting to do some faces.
Thank you. You've been very helpful. I've bought some of the colours you mentioned and hope it improves my painting! Thanks again.
Incredibly helpful. Painting portraits is the hardest form of artwork.
I paint dark skin women 100% of the time and I like using lemon yellow, permanent rose, and any blue that fits what i want at the moment. this is a cool technique though!
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS! i have been struggling with skincolours for about 2 months, and thank you so much for just naming the colours! Now i can finally finish some projects! (I had one laying around where i wanted to show some representation instead of only caucasian which i hate.)
I've made such a nice dark skin colour mixing a Transp. Mars Red (pr 101) with a Perm. Violet Blueish (pv 19), really love the way the colours combine.
Very informative! Thank you for taking the time to share your skin tone colors and advice. Practice is the best teacher once you have a foundation of what you have shown here.
Steve, this was a great video. I use Quin. red and Raw Sienna mostly, throw in a dab of green to neutralize it. My darks are with Burnt Umber and a little blue (usually Indanthrone). I've been avoiding Burnt Sienna and Ultramarine for flesh tones because of the granulation. Even an ink wash is great for the REALLY dark areas.
Great video, keep them coming!
Hi Steve. I am a brand new subbie. I am a long time paper crafter/stamper/cardmaker. I have fallen in love with watercoloring my stamped images (mostly due to Lindsay the Frugal Crafter and Kristina Werner, which is how I found your channel) I have ventured out of stamped images with some online classes and YT videos. This is by FAR the best I have seen regarding flesh/skin tones. This was so full of easy to follow and understand for a novice like me. Thank you so much for taking the time to put out such amazing content.
Two great ladies both with amazing channels!
As a complete beginner this is a brilliant video for explaining in detail how to mix a large variety of flesh tones. Thank you. You’ve succeeded in taking away the panic I felt at the prospect of trying this. Hence I’ve subscribed.
Steve - thank you for this video! A lifetime ago I majored in fashion design. I struggled in fashion illustration class, trying to work with cheap paper and watercolors. I found my own formulas for skin tones, much like you show here. Now I can afford decent products and I will see what I can do now!
Thank you so much for your amazing help Steve. I always turn to your videos for guidance. Thank you. 😊
Fantastic video, thanks for sharing all your knowledge with us!
Great video! I love that you explained a range of skin tones :)
That was extremely helpful and I love that you added a scripture 💕
Thanks, Steve. I really enjoyed this one. I haven't tried portraits, yet, but I have been thinking about it!
This was so helpful thank you!! I’ve been struggling with making my portraits more interesting and I think I know how to fix it now.
Thank you so much! I want to try and paint a picture of a friend. I would never have thought of using these colors.
best tutorial on flesh tones I've come across!!! thanks so much from a newbee!!!
Thank you so much. I am inspired from another video of yours to try mixed media portraits. I've got some warmer paints arriving tomorrow, as I have so far only used cool & warm primaries + Daniel Smith's Jane's Gray in my palette.
Great lection in flesh tones. It is a difficult subject to teach. Flesh tones seem to move in all color spectrums depending on the surrounding light and colors...in my opinion, it is so beautiful how the surrounding atmosphere play a key role in a successful portrait painting.
This is a great video, not sure why it took me so long to see it. Very good instruction as always
Wonderful video full of great tips and techniques!
Thanks Steve - this was very informative!
BTW - I love that Casaneo Quill! Thanks for the recommendation!
Thank you for your teaching.....I always learn from you.
You mixed my exact skin tone! Amazing!
I usually use yellow ochre, cad red or carmine and then cobalt or ultra to dull. I recently posted a video on figure sketching with watercolor. You did a great job, as usual, explaining the process and configurations for any level. Great video- thank you!
Thanks for your input Jared.
Thank you SO much for this! Amazingly helpful
Amazing demonstration thank you
Love this! Fantastic teaching style
I love this video, thank you so much! Your knowledge of colour is inpiring to me! I'd love to see more videos on colour mixing for flesh tones if possible? I'm very interested in how you mentioned there were shades of green sometimes under the nose and chin (but you weren't able to demonstrate that here). Thanks again!
very useful thanks for this,now not scared anymore to do portrait!
Thank you!! That was so very helpful!
Thank you for sharing. I am getting into skintones and you really have to practice.
This is an extremely helpful video, thank you!
Helpful video. I have found raw sienna, quin burnt orange and quin gold to be really helpful in mixing skin tones, along with quin magenta or my old favorites, rose madder or alizarin crimson. I usually introduce cools with ultramarine or cobalt blue depending on how dark the skin is. Olive green is helpful but it's easy to overdo this. I often tend to use colors many would think are odd and unrealistic (think Toulouse Lautrec), but I don't ever do monotone (except on purpose) or pre-mixed colors.
I love playing with skin tones. They are so different and all a challenge. I find most watercolor flesh tones people use look too orange to me. Yours looks great.
Thanks for this sir. This was a real help to me. 🙏🙂
This is sooo helpful.thank you
Really helpful!! Thank you for making this!
This was very helpful! Thank you.
Wow thanks for sharing this with us and breaking down the colors of light and dark skin tones. I have been squeaking by using Daniel Smith’s Titanium Buff for light skin tones and Daniel Smith’s Burnt Umber for the dark skin tones with Payne’s Gray for the shadows. I am definitely going to have to give mixing some more colors a try & not be intimidated by this.
Wonderful! I have been using white with my yellow and rose.....
It's nice to see other people art styles out of enjoyment,take what you can out but keep you own thing like the mixing of color your way do what GOD gave you. Every one has different reflection of art in their bag, I'm very artistic with fine markers ,oil pastels.
For light skin, I like to mix quin rose with a warm yellow, like a gamboge. Works great for me!
Thanks again, relevant for what im trying now!
Very helpful video! Thank you so much.
Very helpful, thank you!
I use tube watercolor and there's a color called "flesh tint" and I use that as a washed out base when using watercolor for caucasian skin and darken it and alter it and add different colors to the skin as I go, but I want to learn how to steer away from doing that so I can work with palletes that don't have flesh tones since many of them don't.
When you mixed the red and the orange in the beginning and a got a light fleshy tone, that gave me hope lol. I'm going to practice more with colors like that.
This video was really helpful. Thank you.
Amazing! Thank you!
So helpful! Thank you
I clicked on this because I liked how you made color charts for the skin tones (instead of a circle or something like other videos, no hate). This just really helps me visualize what the color is made of. I'll be using this in my practice now 😂
I've used color charts like this for other things but I've always really struggled with dark skin... I'm glad I can now go at it with some better direction
Well done! Thank you
Great video Steve! 😁 Lots of useful information and reminders. 😃 I am going to try a portrait again this Sunday. One of these days I'll get it in wc. 😉 One thing people should remember especially with women, there can be makeup in the mix too. This can alter what colors you see. I love looking at all of the beautiful & unique skin tones. Such a wonderful array of colors & tones. I hope you are doing well my friend & thanks for sharing! 🤗
Thanks Val! Yes, great point on makeup. Color changes on any face are what make a face so interesting and dynamic.
Makeup is a whoooooole other beast to tackle-especially when it comes to decorative makeup like colorful eyeshadows and and lipsticks. BUT, if you look at someone who’s a contouring pro it can really help you better understand the planes of the face and how light hits them!
Meow Meow Kapow Kat absolutely!! 😁 Watching make up videos can definitely help.
Very helpful. Thank you.
Great suggestions
So helpful! Thanks a lot!
Thank you, it`s a great help.
Thank you Steve, your videos are so accessible and so instructive. I especially appreciated the dark skin tones as I always seem to end up with mixtures that are too cool, too dark. This was wonderful.
I was wondering if you could do a video more specifically about hair. I love painting portraits but seem completely baffled by hair, both the colour and the technique. It gives me the feeling I can't even see what's on the photograph, ending up with a pretty realistic face and a blob for the hair 😂
Wonderful videos, thank you so much!
Yes, I'll no doubt get to that at some point. Thanks!
Susan Harper has a good UA-cam watercolor video on hair.
very good and I like the technique :D
Great, thank you very helpful.
Best video in and easy to understand
Thank you for a great video on skin tones. Your getting a great reputation from other youtube presenters referencing you.
Oh, well thanks for sharing that!
Very informative, thanks.
Thank you!
EXCELLENT
for lighter skin tones i recently have fallen in love with Quinacridone rust( M. graham) , a very light wash with it makes a really nice base tone, one thing iv'e notice just about every watercolorist iv'e seen has their own system to mixing skintones and they all use different color but they arrive at the same place safe to say, can make a video on 100 ways to get a skingtone . Wonderfull video. skintones is a hard topic to tackle, god bless
Yes, I could see Quin. Rust working very well. And very true on the 100 ways.
Angel Drawing Studio y
Thank you
Excellent video, do think portraits get underrepresented here. Find it hard to get soft muted understated colours. I mean big and bold is fine(if the values are right)but there is something about the natural atmospheric portraits that are so difficult(for me) to achieve.
All great artist always mixed colors to make skin tone. Reason why it takes a long time to complete an art or painting😚
Patients is the key
Admittedly I’m getting on a bit now, but when I did art at school I was taught to give all portraits a very light wash of green before adding flesh tones. It actually did give the subsequent layers some depth and realism. Is that something you have known of?
Thanks for the advice, I really want to start doing portraits again, so this info is invaluable.
Green can be important in flesh tones but depends on the skin color and location. I hesitate to make it quite so formulaic. What you're seeing is the blue tones of the underlying veins mixing with overlying skin tones that are yellower. Where more capillaries exist adding redness to the skin surface there will be purple undertones. In short skin changes color from one region to the next.
Hi Steve, I would like to ask you if you could give a tutorial on using “alternative colours” in shading. It’s kind of difficult to explain but I have often been caught in absolute admiration of a particular painting or watercolour, only to discover -when I look with a critical eye - that the colours used to shadow or give perspective are the absolute alternative to what is expected....often its purple mauve tones for shade......I am assuming the alternative colours have the same “value” /depth of tone , to that which would be expected.........how do I learn more about this...... ...thanks and , thank you for all your hard work in delivering such wonderfully informative tutorials and allowing us wider audiences to enjoy your fantastic artistic talent. Respectfully yours, all the way from west coast Scotland. LizK 🙏🏻🌈🕉
Thank you so much! I really enjoyed the way you broke this down in terms of colors (rather than pigments), which will allow me to play with different ways of choosing triads for sketches. Also, most of these QoR colors live in my backpack in a repurposed Cotman palette, so this video is extra helpful for me to see how these paints behave together. EDIT: Also, I have never thought to use Moonglow as a Neutral Tint (M. Graham is the only NT I own), but now I want to try it.
First off, this is such a top-notch video and tutorial. Well done and a great subject, which you present really well. Thank you! Second, though, there’s a general tomsnubbery about keeping white in the palette. I noticed it’s not in your QoR set. I took some flak in my Daniel Smith video from folks critical of my choice to buy a tube of Chinese White and include it in my palette. lol! Perhaps it’s because I spent so many years with gouache, but with watercolor, I find it just as useful in tinting colors by using just a small percentage in the mix. Sure, I get the opacity and transparency concerns, but in small amounts, the effect is almost nil. I especially use white for flesh tones and when I need to create a specific pastel, which I’m guessing you’d agree with. So, I’m curious as to what your thoughts are on using white to generate flesh tones, either in their primary form or as a tint? Also, kudos on the advice, “don’t get caught up in the names of the colors; you’ve got to be able to mix visually.” A great statement! Anyhow, thank you again! Nice work!!!
Thanks for the kind comments buddy! Yeah, I've got no problem with white on a palette whatsoever. The snobs will always be with us. I confess to being a paper snob but thats about it. In color, I lean towards traditional transparent watercolor. I use the white of the paper if at all possible, but thats just a preference and there is no rule otherwise. I don't like Chinese white personally. Would rather use gouache instead but again thats preference. I actually have white gouache on at least 3 other palettes and I have a Schmincke hybrid palette, half gouache and half transparent. White especially makes sense in flesh tones as you noted. Its a nice way to even out the color. Different strokes for different folks. Go for it!
Nice
I have been spending a lot of time recently watching your videos recently. I am a professional artist with s BS in Graphic Design and now I work as a fine art artist, but you can never stop learning so while my work is drying I watch other artist on UA-cam. I was watching your video on flesh tones, and there is a little something I learn in school that I found interesting when it comes to flesh tones, l wanted to share with you, if you take any two colors opposite of each other on the color wheel, example purple and yellow. Take the yellow and keep gradually adding purple to it until it is saturated with purple. A color swipe of yellow with a tad of purple, the next swipe of yellow even more purple, on and on until the purple is the strongest, in the center of the row of swipes, you will past through flesh tones. This works with green and red, blue and orange as well.
Yes, what you're talking about is complementary color mixing which mainly just produces gray neutrals and brown neutrals in the middle. Can certainly be used in portraiture as you suggest. Complementary mixing is just a great skill to learn anyway for augmenting all sorts of colors. Blue and orange are yet another.
Good stuff, as usual. Can you go over transparency/opacity relating to portraits and figures? I was having trouble with skin tones being too Orange. Someone suggested using naples yellow as a starting base color which did help, but the opacity effect was really daunting. It really seemed to flatten the color. I know you haves moved most of your color choices to all transparent, so maybe with your color range it isn't going to come up as much. I don't yet have these colors you are suggesting but I will go find them soon. Thanks for all the help.
The color names aren't as important as the hue. In other words visual matching of color. My best advice is experiment with creating flesh tone color swatches. You'll appropriate the knowledge much quicker and come up with your own solutions. Go light to dark with your layers. Work cool into the shadows (cool reds and purples) and stay warmer in the highlight areas (yellows and oranges). Keep all your tints pale as you build them. A frequent mistake is making flesh tones too intense and vibrant. They are usually very subtle.
@@mindofwatercolor Well, in terms of hue, naples yellow actually helped a lot. It was the transparency/opacity that was bugging me. But I agree, I could figure this out by experimenting. Thanks again.
great video. I am very very pale, so how would you do a very pale english rose skin ?
Great video. Wish I could click ten likes. Thank you so much. Have watched your videos from the beginning, and the videos have good instructions that are easy to follow and understand. Many thanks.
Great lesson. Would it be possible for you too do a portrait from start to finish. Bigger picture.
Yes.
Very helpful video. The sample pictures I think were not ideal representation although. The skin is those cases had been washed out by the unnatural white light of the flash. I think a better example would be skin under natural light
The problem i have with my palette is, I don't have the 3 basic primary colors. Instead, I have lemon yellow, yellow ochre, vermilion, crimson red, prussian blue and ultramarine blue. I find it hard to mix flesh tones with that. Im really hoping that you'll make a video of mixing flesh tones with other shades of the 3 primary colors(including the colors i mentioned)
Nice teaching on skin tones! What is your opinion on priming your paper with water, and then using cool or warm yellows before you paint? Thank you, Leta
Its fine. Just an approach some people use. Keeps the subject unified.
Very nice Steve... I'm considering purchasing a couple flats. Do you have any preference between a Silver Brush and the Cosmotop Spin? I suspect that the Cosmotop is a bit more "springy" than a Silver Brush. I'm guessing that we didn't see Reese in this video due to his lack of skin :-)
😆
Very helpful. Thanks! May I ask what printer you have? Your stock photo examples looked so nice. My printer does not print very well.
Its a Canon PIXMA photo printer. Its an all in one (copier, scanner, printer). The specific model # they don't make anymore, but the PIXMA line continues. Photo printers use more than 4 colors. This is a 6 color printer which always makes a positive difference.
I have always been using burnt sienna with varied tones added but I tried this and like it. Steve, I have a problem with backgrounds. I always have a great subject but then ruin it all by adding a background. I would love to see a video with you choosing either to do or not to do a background. If you do a background what is your thinking in going about doing that?
I've been asked this many times (and I've been thinking through how I might do a video on it). Difficult question because of how many ways you can accomplish a great background. There is no formula. If you're talking about portraits in this case the best way is to just look at lots of great portrait art. Characterize for yourself what you see and why its good. There are so many ways to create interesting backgrounds for portraits. In general you don't want to detract attention from the face and you want the contrast and color to accentuation the person not pull your eye away from them. But then this is only one factor and so many ways to achieve it. Making these type decisions is whats what makes art, art. 😊
you should make online courses. I learn sooo much from you.
Thank you so much for this Steve! You explained & demonstrated this amazingly! May I ask, was there a particular reason you used QOR for this skin demo? ( I know M. Graham are your favourites). I recently received my first set of artist watercolours ( mission gold pure pigment 24 set ). I’ve fallen in love and already planning on building a palette just for skin tones ( silly dream of mine to draw & paint portraits). I was considering purchasing M. Graham to include in the palette and hadn’t really considered QOR for the skin... until now! I will definitely be investing in M. Graham in the future no matter what( they sound like a dream & your work & thoughts on them inspires me). Any suggestions or your thoughts on the subject of watercolour paints for skin would be greatly appreciated!! And thank you so much again . Kind regards, Paige
Nope. I just like to rotate my paint use for fun and stay familiar. Any good paint works well. M. Graham, Qor, Mission Gold, Daniel Smith, DaVinci, Schmincke, Sennelier, Maimeri blu. All top brands to name a few. Mix and match to your hearts content.
@@mindofwatercolor Thank you so much Steve for taking the time and effort to reply on such an old video! Greatly appreciated!! Ive only just received my first artist grade watercolour set (mission gold pure pigments) and I've completely fallen in love and want to experience other brands . Sennelier may be a wonderful option because of there layering/ capabilities i thought too (?). Anyway, thank you so much again!
portrait gouache please=)