Portrait Painting

Lecture 3 Excerpt

Color can be built up in layers of glazes or in an opaque, cohesive coat. Glazing refers to the technique of applying layers made transparent by mixing the pigment with a medium. The combination of both methods can be very effective. Glazing can be used to make final color or value adjustments.

Mixing Skin Tones

Begin by selecting an area of the face that falls within the middle tonal range, illuminated and rich in color. Mix this color on the palette. This will be your base skin tone.

Mix a substantial puddle, as most subsequent skin tones you mix will branch off of this puddle.

The puddles off of puddles method refers to the practice of starting out with a base color, and adjusting its hue or tone by pulling off a piece of the main puddle and introducing other colors. It can be very helpful: It will keep you from having to constantly remix from scratch slight variations of a previously-laid skin tone.

Because you may not remember the color combination or combination ratios of your base skin tone, remixing can lead to unevenness and discrepancies in color from one area of the face to the next. Having a bit of the same color work its way subtly into other parts of a painting can also create harmony. This is the strength of limited-palette paintings: The inherent lack of color variety can keep the composition from breaking up into shards of competing color.

This being said, be careful not to rely too much on this base skin tone. A dangerous tendency is to use the same flesh tone over the entire face, simply value adjusting it with white and darks where necessary. This can result in a plastic look, static and lacking nuance. Skin changes color temperature, in addition to value, from one area of the face to the next. Skin also changes in opacity and reflectivity in different areas, which should register in your painting.

Let's look at how I've built a palette:

I start off with a base flesh tone (puddle A above), relatively pure in color. In this case, it's cadmium yellow medium and cadmium red light.

I branch a line of color-adjusted variations off of the main puddle (puddles labeled B). I'm taking this in a slightly cooler direction, adding the cool red alizarin crimson and sap green.

The next line of color (C) is getting more intensely warm. I'm adding more yellow, red, and orange, and subduing them slightly with green.

The next puddle (D) was made cool by simply adding raw umber to the original mixture. Notice how much an earth tone can cool and gray an otherwise vibrant mixture.

The final colors (E) are combinations of all previous mixtures. They are harmonious with the other tones already on the picture, but can be adjusted in hue and value as much as needed.

The following video tutorial summarizes this approach to mixing skin tones.

Running Time: 7:20. Read the Transcript

Skin Tone Formulas

While you should eventually form an aversion to skin-tone formulas, they can be helpful in the beginning. Understand that the model's local skin color (inherent color), lighting, and the surrounding setup will all influence flesh tone away from any static formula. If you are struggling, use this combination to get started:

Cadmium yellow and cadmium red light, toned down with sap green. This combination is rather versatile, and can be used for Caucasian or black skin. Its versatility is due to its composition of the three primaries: red, yellow, and blue (contained in green).

This basic mixture can be adjusted in value and color by mixing its components in different ratios. Black skin, for example, tends to be more reflective than translucent, and often is composed of a wide range of reflected colors and subtler cools. Using this same basic palette with altered ratios can effectively capture skin tones of any ethnicity.

Laying Down Skin Tone

When you lay the skin tone down, you may notice how different the color looks on the palette as opposed to on your surface. The more you work, the more you will adjust to this discrepancy. Again, this is the reason for applying a neutral ground to the surface and using a neutrally colored palette.

Try being bold with the paint. Lay down a creamy brushstroke, knowing that you can always scrape off and try again. Like drawing, you will realize that your initial effort may very well need to be erased or covered over. See it as an evolving process of correcting: it's less scary.

Another way that may help give you more bearing: Cover a larger area with a thin coat of base tone. Either apply this coat as a thinned wash or by scrubbing on just enough paint to cover. You then have an approximate color against which you can gauge your next move. This also provides a wet surface onto which you can lay the next stroke.

I'm starting with an umber sketch similar to the one from last lesson.

Restate your basic planes by matching with color the approximate values of the umber sketch. You are relying on the tone of the umber underpainting, but are now adding hue to the equation.

If you are confident with the color and placement of your brushstrokes, you can lay them side by side, like shingles on a roof. Each shingle corresponds with a facet on the face.

Middle and light tones are laid in. Click to enlarge.

A note about thickness of paint: A good general rule is to reserve the thickest paint application for the lightest lights, such as highlights. Shadows are less substantial, and therefore can be applied more thinly and transparently. Middle tones can be on the thicker side of a median between the two.

Shadows are addressed. I'm keeping the paint thinner, more transparent. Click to enlarge.

Don't be too timid: as the expression goes, "Paint with paint!"

Working With the Middle Tones

Work from your middle tones to your lights. Err on the conservative side with middle-tone values, and be careful not to make them too bright to later heighten with the true brights. Do not get too attached to what you have down. Remember that colors function in relation to each other: No color can be confirmed as correct until gauged relative to its surroundings. Until you have an entire area covered, it is very difficult to tell what you are putting down.

Travel around to different parts of the painting, roughing them in as you go. Each color will help you place the next, in the way the pieces of a puzzle become easier to place as the image comes together. Choose each color relative to its surroundings by "bouncing" your eye to other areas.

When choosing a tone for the nose, bounce your eye to the ear, the hand, the hair, the background. As skin temperature cools toward the upper lip, calibrate your color to the base skin tone. Bounce your eye around the model, then on your picture.

Because colors function in relation to each other, laying in the darker darks and the cools of the background is essential to gauging skin tones.

Keep your edges from getting too hard. As we will cover later, hard edges should be used selectively to draw focus, but overuse flattens and looks amateurish. This can be done at the end of a sitting, by dragging a clean brush over a wet area, or as you go, by letting adjacent strokes and shapes touch each other, even if slightly.

Working With the Shadows

As suggested, try to keep shadows wispier and more transparent. Often shadows will appear as either lacking color or containing too much color. In either case, let the color you put down to represent it be as ambiguous as the observed shadow tone. If you can definitively label your mixed shadow color as orange, or blue, or any other color, that color must be subdued back into neutrality.

Start by mixing a version of each of the primaries into a neutral earth-tone or gray. Adjust from there, but be careful not to mix too much white into the equation, or it will turn to instant mud. Adding titanium white will take away from the rich transparency of your shadow color.

Here I've carried the light of the neck too far left. I use the rich dark of the hair color too "carve" back into the neck shape. This gives me the desired softness of edge I eventually want throughout the painting, in addition to correcting the drawing.

Working With the Lights

For lighter middle tones and bright brights, be bold. Carefully choose only one or two colors mixed with a lot of white to get glowing skin tones. Cadmium yellow and red, which form a garish salmon color when combined, can make glowing skin tones when mixed with copious amounts of white. Keep in mind that white is a cooling color. The warmest color can register as cool when mixed with enough white.

Rounding Out Volumes With Gradations

While it is preferable to think of the face as a collection of planes and facets, there are volumes that require smoother, more gradual gradations. These volumes occur more frequently with rounder faces, such as with children or younger females. But there are areas on most faces, and on the cylinder-like forms of the arms and fingers, where these blends are necessary.

This can be done by taking two or three tones laid side by side, then working them together. Figure out the perimeters of the area in which the transition needs to take place. Say you need to transition from a middle tone to light tone. Lay down a solid swath of the middle tone, carrying it beyond its eventual boundary, encroaching into where the light tone will eventually be. Next, place the light tone next to it. Use the brush to carry some of the light tone into the middle tone, essentially carving back into the middle tone. A soft gradation should result as the light tone eventually runs out on your brush.

The cheekbone and chin here are rounded out with very soft gradations.

A slight variation of this technique can be used on larger volumes. Think of the cylinder of an arm, as opposed to the ball of a nose. Lay the tones side by side. Dragging the lighter tone into the middle tone would result in long, vertical brushstrokes. An inexplicable visual phenomenon assigns these long, vertical brushstrokes status as "slick" or "streaky." This is a bad thing. Shorter brushstrokes are somehow more satisfying to the eye, and brushstrokes that cut across a form serve to better define it. Think of horizontal stripes on clothing: They accentuate volume (although in fashion, this has negative connotations).

Get rid of these "slick" horizontals by taking a clean brush and dragging one tone into the other down the length of the form in sharp, horizontal zigzags. Then even out the zags with a couple of light vertical passes. This should leave a ghostly image of brush marks going across the form.

The final portrait. Click to enlarge.

A close up of the final portrait. Notice how the various facial volumes have been rounded out, and how the colors and values vary throughout the image. Click to enlarge.

Exercise 3 Excerpt

Complete Portraits

Go from underpainting to finished portrait in this exercise.

In our final lesson of the class, we've applied color to finally turn our careful drawing and values into a truer likeness of the subject.

You've probably guessed that the main goal of this exercise is to complete the painting you've worked on throughout the class, adding color and bringing it to a near final state. You need not finalize every single detail of the portrait, but I would like you to create good skin tones, round out your volumes, and create at least one or two focal points in the image.

Finally, a piece you might not be expecting... I'd like you to show your face. You'll wrap up this exercise with a self portrait, working with a mirror and many of the techniques you've learned to create a simple likeness of yourself.

Finalizing Your Portrait Painting

Now you'll take your umber painting to the next level! Apply paint with the considerations mentioned in Lesson Three.

Don't be afraid to lose some of what was established in the underpainting. It's a guide, but you shouldn't be afraid to make adjustments. That said, stay true to value. Remember that color is at the service of value in rounding out volumes and achieving spatial depth.

Materials

You'll need the following supplies to complete both projects in this exercise:

	Canvas or panel large enough to do a near life-size head with breathing room on all sides. Mirror Filbert bristle brushes, ranging in size from 1 through 7 A wooden or glass palette Your underpainting from the last exercise Paint in the following recommended colors: Titanium white, cadmium yellow light, cadmium yellow medium cadmium red light, cadmium red medium, alizarin crimson, yellow ochre, raw sienna, burnt sienna, raw umber, sap green, ultramarine blue, ivory black Palette knife Rag or paper towels Turpenoid

Taking Your Painting to Completion

Keep these steps in mind as you work, and refer back to the lesson as needed:

	1. Mix a middle skin tone as a base in a large puddle and branch your other tons off of it. Only use a skin tone formula if you struggle. 2. Be bold, making creamy brushstrokes, and don't hesitate to scrape off and try again if needed. 3. Restate your planes using the values of your underpainting and try a thin coat of base tone to help you decide your next move. 4. Work from the middle tones to the light tones, traveling around the painting, before moving to shadows. 5. Round out volumes with gradations. 6. Resolve the painting's focus and edges.

Take this portrait as far as you deem fit. Not every area has to be taken to complete finish, but try to have at least one or two areas of focus to anchor the picture. Push color and play with edges: Don't get restrained trying to preserve the underpainting. You will have plenty of opportunities to do more pictures, so make this a learning experience. Venture outside of your comfort zone.

Self Portrait

Throughout this class, you have taken a single subject from drawing to complete portrait painting, so I hope you're itching to work on another subject.

In this second part of your final exercise, I would like to you create a self portrait. Self portraiture can be extremely challenging, but is a good next step in getting you comfortable with the concept of creating likenesses. Not to mention, we don't always have portrait commissions and people willing to sit for us, so naturally our most compliant model is ourselves.

Self portrait - Palden Hamilton

You may find ways in which your personal method deviates from the step-by-step instructions outlined in the past lessons. Figure out where you need to focus attention. Perhaps you need to take extra time on getting the drawing right, or more time experimenting with color. As long as you need to work on this, you will have a model!

Here are some tips on making a good setup and self portrait:

	Organize a setup where there is adequate light on your face and your surface. Get comfortable. Position your head so that glancing from mirror to your surface to your palette requires only a shift of your eyes. Remember the exact angle of your head by coming up with reference markers: For instance, if working from three-quarter view, line up the edge of the bridge of your nose with the inside corner of your far eye. Looking straight ahead ensures that the angle of your head won't shift. In any case, it's not possible to paint a moving target: Settle on a precise and unchanging view.

As with your other portrait, take this to a level of completion you feel comfortable with for now. You need not attend to every detail, but should create an adequate likeness in color.

Submitting Your Work

When you are done, scan in your paintings or photograph them and upload to the Dropbox for review. Be sure to scan your work at 300 ppi and then reduce the size of the image so that no side is larger than 700 pixels at 72 ppi.

If photographing your work, make sure that your photograph contains the entire canvas, with little showing off the canvas. Resize the image so no side is larger than 700 pixels at 72 ppi. Do not use Photoshop to fix errors in your work.

Save your files as JPEGs.