Perfect Portraits: Painting Faces and Skin Tones in Watercolor with Ease

1. Introduction and Overview: What color portrait? It's just saying those two words strikes fear into the heart of many watercolor artists, but it doesn't need to be that way. I want to show you both simple and advanced techniques. Paint beautiful watercolor portrait that are vibrant and full of life. Hi, I'm shoddy from Sadie. Saves the day. I'm a watercolor artist, and I especially love mixing. I'm learning more about watercolors. I was once scared of painting, portrait and watercolors to, but through trial and error, I figured out a technique that makes painting portrait. It's fun. Let me share it with you. Together we can paint a whole range of skin tones life medium dark and everything in between Johnny. 2. Materials : What You Need for This Course: or this class, you will need water. You jaws or containers full is good. One for clean water and one for dirty water. What are colors? The brand doesn't matter, and you don't need special skin tone colors. I recommend at least having a palette with a warm and cool yellow, a warm and cool red and a warm and cool blue. I'll talk more about color soon. Watercolor paper. Try to have a good quality watercolor paper because we're going to be using a lot of layers . You can use cold or hot pressed paper, but I prefer to use hot pressed paper because you can get really smooth skin and lots of detail. Watercolor brushes have a range of watercolor brushes. I recommend the sizes to or and six you can use synthetic or natural hair brushes. I prefer to use natural hairbrushes because they're softer. That allows me to layer easily because they won't disturb the paint underneath. However, natural hair brushes can also be more difficult for beginners in watercolor because they are a little harder to control a towel or paper towels. This is for death in your brushes or picking up mistakes. I like to use a towel because it's reusable a pencil. You'll need this to draw the portrait to make charts and other drawings. It's also a good idea to have a black and a white pencil or white and black wash where the color value study, but this is not totally necessary. 3. Just Breathe: Some Things to Keep In Mind: breathe in. Now breathe out. Some people get really anxious about the idea of painting portrait. There's no reason to be anxious. Painting people is just like painting anything else, and all skin tones can be painted using the same basic principles. One type of skin tone is not any easier or harder to paint than any other skin tone. Okay, Are you relaxed now? Great. This is gonna be tongues of fun, but let's have fun. 4. Values: The Most Important Part of a Portrait: value values are the most important part of painting anything, especially portrait. It's lots of people think that mixing skin tones are the most important part of painting a portrait, but it's not. Values are. It doesn't matter if your colors are a little off, but if you have the correct value, you can paint a convincing portrait. That's why we can see faces and everything. All it needs are the correct shadows and the correct places, and we issue anything is a phase. So what is value, exactly? Value is how light or dark something in if you don't value painting. That's basically a black and white painting, and that's exactly what we're going to do. Let's start with the shadows. I'll show you this on toned paper because it's easier to see. Shadows are formed anywhere. The facial structure blocks light anywhere a plane faces downwards. You'll she a shadow. Obviously, every face is different, but there are a few places on the face that almost always have a darker shadow as long as the faces in regular lighting. Those are the corner of the eyes. Decrease of the island under the eyelid under the eye, the nostrils and under the nose under the lip and often the top lift as well. The corner of the smile and under the chin. Many people attempt to paint Portrait's without the shadows, especially when painting women. But that leads to a flat and unrealistic portrait. Try to keep these things in mind when painting and also look out for the shadows. When you're out and about, you can probably see them on most people in your everyday life. Next is highlights. Highlights are formed wherever the light hits Steve around places facing upward. The most common places for highlights are the forehead, the shine of the eyes, the bridge of the nose and the apples of the cheeks. Sometimes you might also get a shine on the Cupid's bow of the top live if the person has very full lips. Okay, so those are the basics of highlights and shadows on the face 5. References: How to Create Reference Photos that are Easy to Use: Now that you know the basics of highlights and shadows on the face, let's put that into practice. We're going to be trying to make a face in black and white. Why? Because it's much easier to see value when you separate it from color, especially in the beginning. There are a couple of things that you can do to help yourself see the value in the portrait that you're going to paint. One thing that you can dio is turn your color photo into a black and white photo. You can use many different computer programs or even smartphone abs. To do this. Here is how you can do it on your phone. I have an iPhone, but you should be able to find a similar function on nearly any smartphone. Select your image. Open the image in the basic photo viewing app of your phone. Click. Edit toe. Open the editing options. Click the button to open the color editing options. Elect a black and white option. Compare the black and white options to decide which one you like best. I don't really like to choose an option with more contrast, because it makes it easier to see the highlights and the shadows and an image save your new black and white image. If you want to go one step further, you can use a function called pasta rising to separate the values in your image into distinct layers. This function is available in many smartphone APS desktop software and even on Web apps. I'll show you how to do it two ways. Here's how you can do it in photo shop. Open your file and Photoshopped crop your image to the area that you desire elect image, brought down toe adjustments and then two black and white. A window will pop up and you'll be given several black and white options. So, like the one that you prefer, go back to the mid section, scroll down to adjustments and you will find the posterized option. Select the posterized option. You can choose a number of levels that you would like for the image. Generally, between three and five is good. The left one that works for you and the image that you have. Save your image and here's how you can do it for free. Using a website called Time Tools, navigate to the website. Find tools dot com. Click the text labeled images on the left hand side. Search for the option to change saturation. Open up the file that you want to make into black and white. Once the images loaded changed a saturation option to negative 100 you should see a black and white version of your image. Click Execute, and this region will be created. Click on the file format that you want to download for your image next to the floppy disk icon. Put it in a place that you can find it on your computer. Now go back to the images section and look for the pasta rise effect. Open up the black and white file that you just created. The program gives you the option of many different levels. I would choose between three and five levels, depending on what your image looks like. Three is the easiest to start with. Place the posterized button and then save your new posterized image. Well, those are three ways to edit your image to make it easier to see values. Now you have a reference image that can help you to see the different values in your portrait. You don't always need to use something like this, but it can be really helpful, especially when you're just starting out like and like No, - like . 6. Black and White: How to Paint a Value Portrait: well. Now, in order to put those girls to use, we're going to paint a portrait in black and white. Oh is known as a value portrait. Since watercolor is a transparent medium and you normally work on white paper, you don't normally paint the highlights. Because of that, we're going to do this exercise on toned paper. You can either buy tone paper or you could make it yourself. To do that, you can paint some white paper with a medium grey or brown color. Working on toned paper is great because it really lets you see the values in whatever you're drawing or painting. The medium color of the paper serves as the mid tome of the drawing, allowing you to focus on the highlights and the shadows to put in the highlights. You can use white wash pastel talk or colored pencil. A dark pencil or black wash works well for the shadows. This won't be a really detailed portrait. It's just in exercise to show you how to examine the face in order to get the credit values in the correct area, starting with the outline of the face, Let's put in the shadows first by the way. If you need some reference photos for your portrait, I have included that linked to this class. So don't worry. As I said before, the shadows can be seen in the corner of the eyes. Increase of the island under the lid under the eyes, like the nostrils under the nose under the lips, the top lip the corner of the smile and under the chin. In addition to these places, look to see where there are any special or unique shadows in your reference now for the highlights. The highlights are on the forehead, the sign of the I the nose bridge on the apples of the cheeks. Look to see if there are any other highlights that you notice I put them in, and that's it. You have now painted a simple value portrait It Let's be too exciting in black and white, but you can try this out in lots of different colors and make a really nice artistic or trip 7. Let’s talk about skin tone: The Truth about Pre-mixed Colors: in many different watercolor sets, you will come across a color that's labeled flesh or skin thes days. Some companies also call this normal young or right yellow. Many beginning watercolorist go to this color as their default for painting portrait. It's, and they often end up with paintings that are dull and lifeless. So I'm telling you this for your own good. Away from the premixed intoned skin is not just one flat color. Our skin has many different layers that have blood fat and mylan, so it makes sense that you just couldn't approximate it realistically, with just one color and especially not a premixed color thes colors and only have white and many other colors in them, which makes them opaque and money. The most simple and basic way to make a skin tone requires just three colors of primary colors. Why, well, because when you mix of primary colors together, you get brown and brown is the color of melanin, which is president. Everybody's skin, unless they have album is um but step away from the flesh color and come over to the right side. It's nice over here, I promise. 8. My Favorite Colors for Painting Portraits: Okay, so I just got finished talking about how you can paint skin tones with the primary colors. So why am I going to talk about my favorite colors for painting? Portrait. It's even though it's totally possible to paint a portrait with just three colors. Some colors just make it a little easier. It was very difficult for me to find these colors, and they're not commonly included in many watercolor sets. Well, I wanted to share them with you. Here are the things that are most important to me in what watercolors I choose to use in a portrait I look for paints with no granule ation, No, added white. Sometimes I look for opacity, and I never, ever used being mixed skin covers. So without further ado, here are the colors that I love to use. When painting portrait, it's I must watch out each of the colors. Just a note. I will give you both the pigment number and the color name, but it's important to pay more attention with pigment number in the name because the names can vary across bands, but the pigment number will always stay the same. He why 1 29 brain gold. This is one of my favorite yellow colors in the pan. It doesn't look like anything special, but on the paper we see that is a very cool yellow, and it is actually a bit on the green side. This makes it perfect from mixing skin tones when mixed with red colors. You Why 1 50 nickel as a yellow? This is another very deceiving co. It starts off looking pretty dark, but you can see that it can change into a very transparent yellow. This makes it perfect for layer in pp seven. Raw number. This is a color that I don't use very often because it is brand dilating and I try to avoid granulated colors. However, this version of raw number is nice and neutral, so when you need to use a very dark neutral brown in very sparing occasions, this is where I go. He y 43 yellow joker. This is one time where I care about the brand, and I only recommend the core version of this paint Porsche, Mika's new transparent broker. In this case, this is an opaque to semi opaque color. Many people uses the base where lighter or tan skin tones. I don't often like to start with this color because of its opacity, but sometimes it's really useful when you're painting a light skin tone and you want to give the skin a little bit more body than I often add it towards the end. Eat, 0 49 But if you don't go, this is one of my go to yellow colors. I use it for nearly all skin tones. It gives everything really blowing quality. It's also useful because it's staining but not aggressively staining, so it will not move around when you paint layers on top. But you can also blend it out easily. You Why 1 53 New GAM bows? There are some reports that this pigment is this continue, but while I have it, I like to use it. This is really good for mixing blues to make browns and Adam more sunny. Look to very yellowy skin tones. E 0 48 Quinta Creed on gold deep thistles, the color that I go to to build up darker skin tones. Anything from tan very dark. It has a nice glow and vibrancy, just like when agreed on gold, you know, 65 pens and need alone orange. This is one of my favorite color for warmers in tow. It's not extremely bright red, and it's very gentle. It's nice for lips and cheeks to keep er 41 transparent brown. I basically feel like I can't paint fortress without this color. It's not totally necessary, but it makes things oh much used. You can get this to a neutral brown, and then from there you can deepened the color within Dan three Blue if you want it even darker, or you could warm it up or pull it down Whatever you want. E b. 206 matter brown This pigment problem goes in every one of my paintings in probably OSK in tones that for the very lightest and even then I might use it in the corners of eyes and in the lifts is such a gorgeous color, and it really feels like skin mixed with blood. Actually, it's an almost direct match for the tips of my fingers. He are 1 79 para Lima room. I don't often use this color on its own, but it's a great color to mix together with Caroline Green, transparent brown or in dancing blue to get deep, rich colors. He are 209 Been agreed on red. I don't often use the regular red on my palette when I'm painting skin tones or anything else. This clinic we don't read is about as close as I get. It's really good for the first layer of painting, because staining I have put this everywhere. That I seem forms in a portrait, UV 19. And if you don't rose things, Color is useful for times when I need a color that's a little cooler than critically. Don't read, especially an extremely pale skin with blue undertones. E V 42 clinic credo. Violet, this is a bit more of a pinky color, kind of like cotton candy. He are 1 22 when a creed on magenta. This is my preferred mixing cool red and makes a very fiber purple and mix it with nearly every other color, namely, well, TV 53 Clinic read on purple. My main usage for this color is for under painting. I love this who just disappears underneath other colors. It's also staining, so it stays put underneath these layers. State is not too warm, not too cool. It doesn't shift the other colors in a strange way. It's also very useful for painting extremely dark skin tones with a purplish undertone. You be 15 colon, three bailable red shade. To be honest, I rarely use this color. It is here as a replacement for Ultra Marine. I prefer to use this instead of ultra Marine as a warm blue because it is not regulating. You'd be 16 in Death Room blue, another one of those colors that I love because it allows me to get extremely dark tones after. Mix this with transparent brown to get a very deep, dark brown. You can also be mixed with purely my room to get a deep purple one of my favorite blues of all time. No, actually, just my favorite blue even 27 pressure group. Okay, I might be cheating on a dancer and blue with passion. This is a blue I use in the majority of my portrait paintings. It's a blue that I began and ended most paintings with I prefer to use this color instead of ultra Marine because it does not grant you late, and the color is much gentler at least Fishman conversion that I have. It gives a very soft blue, which is more similar to how this tone appears and skin. You don't want to be painting blue. People educate 31 purely in green, one of my favorite colors, but I really use this color on its own. And portrait. It's It's mostly used for mixing with, apparently maroon to get deep, dark, dramatic blacks. Now I will make a mixing charts so that you can see how these colors mixed together. Okay, now you know them all. You don't need to get all of these colors or even moves to them. I find them really useful and getting the right shade without ending way too long, mixing colors to get the right tone. 9. Simple Mixes: The Basics of Mixing Skin Tones: Okay, So now do you want to know all the steps to mixing a skin tone? It's gotta be something. Really. Tubers. Duper complicated, right? No, it's really simple. All you have to do is make a reddish head of color with a yellowish color. Sometimes you have something kind of bluish that's it just makes the primary colors together, Boris. Depending on the skin tone, you may need to add less or more water, but that's basically it. So okay, I just want you the play around with mixing skin tones. All kinds light, dark, whatever. 10. Cool form, all kinds. It doesn't even matter if the colors resemble your skin or not. I just want you to get used to putting these colors together and thinking about how they make. Just get out a sheet of paper and see what happens when you mix these colors together. How fun 10. Let’s Make Mud : Using the Primary and Complimentary Colors: Did you have fun playing around? Well, then let's play around some more. Watercolor artists often complain about making mud. What they really mean is that they made the color brown by mistake, and that is exactly what we're going to do. Well, not by mistake, on purpose. There are lots of ways to neutralize colors, but there are two main ways that are super duper easy to reproduce. Those are mixing two complementary colors together, or mixing the three primary colors together to color mixes to color. Mixes are basically the same as mixing the primaries together. For example, when you makes red and green together, where you really mixing together is read and a mixture between yellow and blue. So, really, you're mixing red, yellow and blue, which is the primary colors just that the yellow and blue is already conveniently packaged for you in the green, so that makes it a lot easier to color. Mixes are composed of complementary colors, but you have to be careful because not all complementary colors mixed brown some of the mixed of black instead. But what we want for skin tones is mostly brown. I'm making a mixing chart that explores all the colors that you can get from reds and greens in your palate, like do the same for blues and oranges and yellows and purples. - Okay , my favorite to color mixes for skin tones are yellow car plus red yellow ca, Plus red is a great, easy way to make many lighter skin tones. Whether it is Peavy 19 pp. 42 or p. Art 1 22 All of these colors mixed too realistic lighter skin tones that can be diluted for very light skin tones or mixed more concentrated for 10 skin tones. These next colors are all quite dark, and you might think that if you're painting a prevalent lighter skin, you might not need any of these mixes. I find myself using these mixes in the shadows of lighter skinned people all of the time. I also find them very important because many people have difficulty mixing darker skin Colors, PP I seven and PPR 41. This makes a very dark but still realistic skin tone. It's not as cool as PBR seven by itself, and it is not a warmest PPR 41 by itself. It's somewhere in between. He are 1 79 and PPK, 31. High uses conversation all the time, and not just in my portrait. It's It makes an extremely dark, shar black color that I used everywhere. I need extreme depth of shadow. That's great for those little tiny places, like under the nostrils in the ear or eyelashes to make them extra dark. Phoebe, 60 and PBR 41. This is high mixed, my second darkest brown. This makes a really nice, non granulated, dark brown. It is very slightly warm, but that would be modified by the addition of more blue if you need a cooler brown color PP . 60 and PBR seven. This is the darkest brown Jones. This is a granulated color. I use it very sparingly, even in really dark skin tones. But sometimes you need that extra. I can't of dark. It is also helpful that it is very cool. It can be a little difficult. Sometimes that makes good cool browns, and this helps P 0 65 PBR 40. Thes two colors are very similar to one another, so you might not think to mix them together. If you want to make a slightly warmer brown than PPR 41 can give you that this is the perfect mix. It is really great for very warm tones brown skin people, and it is wonderful. As a tan colored, we water down PPR 41 PV 55. Normally, you wouldn't think of darkening orange colors with a purple, but it is perfect here. You can get some really nice luscious brown's with mixing oranges with purples, and that is definitely the case here. Some darker tones are kind of purplish, and this is a great way to get that tone without making the person look like an alien three color mixes. These are basically mixtures of the primary colors, but I want to apply it in your view of what that means. When people say red, I think of fire truck red or apple rent or something like that. But red could be much more subdued, and that is actually exactly what we want for painting skin tones. For example, would you normally consider this a yellow or this a red? Probably not, but that's exactly what I'm talking about here. Try to pick subdued colors for your primary triads. One way to check out the range of the three colors that you have chosen is by making a three color mixing chart. I'll have a template included, but you can very easily do this by hand. All it is is a four by four box squares. The top left most box will have your yellow, the top right. Most box will have your blue and the bottom left. Most box will have your red use for large well. Fill three of the wells with a copious amount of yellow. Next, we're going to mix the radiant from yellow to blue in the first. Well, add a small amount of blue to the yellow swatch that is to the right of the pure yellow square. Add a little more blue to the yellow, until it was quite a deep green. Watch that to the left of the pure blue square, now in the second well at a little bit of red at about the same amount of red in the fared well, let's watch the resulting or into yellow color underneath the pure yellow swatch. Now at a little bit of blue to the second. Well, let's watch that next to the slightly orange color, then at a little more blue and swatch that next to the previous watch. Do that one more time. Next, at a little more red to the third. Whoa, Watch that underneath the war into yellow color next at some blue to the third. Well, plus that to the right, had a little more blue. Watch that, and finally, add a little more blue and swatch that the last room will be a combination of red and blue . But you think the fourth empty well, fill up a decent amount of red. Add a slight amount of blue to that watch that to the right of the pure Red square had a little more blue, but that to the right. And finally add a little more blue and put that to the right. Now you have a chart that shows you the pure mixers between yellow and blue. Across the top. You're pure mixtures between yellow and red, down the left hand side, with your mixtures between red and blue down the bottom three color mixtures in between. Now you have a pretty quick overview of some of the Knicks is that you can make with the paints that you have chosen. Of course you can make this chart is big or small as you want to get all of the variations in between. 11. The Sphere Exercise: A Simple Portrait Warm-up: you've probably seen this exercise before as a value exercise, but this time we're going to do something a little different. You just spent a bunch of time experimenting with colors that you think will work out for skin tones. Well, now, let's put those colors to work. This exercise is really simple. All you're going to do is draw circle. Now come up with a light, dark and medium told that you think will go well together. Paint the circle with the color is so that they create a three D spear that looks like it is made out of skin. Okay, that's ended a little creepy. It's not creepy, I promise. I recommend starting with a light color to cover most of the sphere, but saving the highlight. Then do the middle color and cover around half of the skier. Finally, put the dark at the bottom edge of this fear, where it is most far away from the light. Often it's easiest to go for a yellow light color, a reddish medium color and a bluish dark. This is a fast way to put together a range of colors to see if they work instead of painting the whole portrait. All your painting is fear will paint a bunch of these little spheres in different skin tones and have fun. It doesn't even better if they all work out. Experimenting is the point. 12. Getting it on Paper: How to Transfer Your Image: this class is more about painting than drawing a portrait, so I'm not really going to go into detail about how to draw a portrait. But you are gonna need to paint something, so I'm going to talk about how to get your image onto the paper. First there is drawing. One way to do this is just drawing directly on the paper. You just grab a pencil and eraser and get going. This is not the method that I would recommend because watercolor paper is very delicate and you could damage it by the pressure that you use in drawing or even erasing. But if you really want to draw directly on to the paper, I was just using a kneaded eraser instead of your standard eraser. A kneaded eraser is very gentle, so it's probably not going to damage your watercolor paper. Also, make sure Teoh ease up on the pressure with the pencil and not Cowgill lines into the paper . Paint will collect in those grooves, and that's not so great tracing paper. The next method is using tracing paper. Tracing paper is a sort of transparent paper made for praising. This makes it easier to see your image through the paper and get those fine details. Once you trace the image, turn over the paper and rub graphite into it. Or you can use graphite paper to transfer the final image. Graphite paper gas like paper is paper that has recovered in powdered graphite. It is used to chance for images onto the final paper. There are several different types of graphic paper, so be careful There Inc based types that will bleed if you'll use water on top of it. And that's not what you want to use. Watercolor. So make sure if you do buy this, but it's not this type. Personally, I like to make my own graphite paper. You could do this with a regular pencil. All you have to do is take a very dark graphic pencil, preferably something like an eight B or a 10 B and rub it all over one side of the paper. Once the paper is totally covered in graphite, you can use a cotton pad or a tissue dampened with alcohol to smooth it out. And there you go. You have your own graphite paper. This is one method and doesn't require any complex tools but my favorite method involves water soluble graphite. It's super duper easy. All you have to do is mix up a really big pace of the water soluble graphite and spread it all over the paper. When it's dry, you're done. Didn't I say it was easy? Lightbox. If you don't want to use any of those other methods, there's one more method that I want to share with you. For me, using a light box is the best way to get the most amount of detail in my drawing. You put your sketch or image on top of the lightbox and tape it down. Then you put your watercolor paper on top of that and generally trace the image into your paper. I use ah, hard pencil to do this. I have a light hand, so I often use something like a six age. But if you have a heavier hand, you might want to use something softer like a to eight. And if you don't have a fancy shmancy light box, I still have a solution for you. You can use a window. The same method applies. Tape down your image a pope, your watercolor paper and trace away 13. First Steps: Painting a Simple Portrait: Okay, so this is this going to be a really simple demonstration of a really simple quick portrait ? It's not gonna be super detailed, but just to show the basic principles that we've been working with. So I'm going to start with, um, yellow occurred because I really like often on the majority of skin tones to just start out with something really nice and no, this is gonna be pretty. What are down. You don't want it to be to dog. And just to use a pretty big brush. No, make us covered everything on the face except for the eyes. And I guess the teeth obviously get her years were very nervous, a little messy by the here, but she was really dark hair. Watch out for this cold piercing. So that's going to be the lightest part of this painting. Skin is obviously much darker than this tune. So everywhere that is not in the highlight area. They're going to have to darken. And she really just has a highlight hitting these here and on the side of her nose here. So under screening that that, uh, was so cranky Donny for an orange. And I want to put that yellow will get out there for you. A little bit of the baby that make it a little list crazy, orange colored and been done with this. Okay, um, we're trying to avoid Oh, what could I totally heard out when you got the top of her head? Someone unexplained or not? Okay. And put that in there. Wade knows he has cold head. Okay, Okay, so you start trying to put in the shadows so you can see that her hope I area is in shadow . That's because your eyes socket is khan care. So that's basically always going to be a bit in shadow and is pretty important to make sure that you get that in mirror. Obviously, the same thing is happening on the other I e No, it looks like she just got pension face from this. Okay. Does he just have these two tar coal of here? Um and so here is this whole side. It's just and shadow here. You can take that around the curve of her cheek, and then we start getting a burger again. Don't. Here, here. This whole area underneath the news using shadow Does it normally and most people is your news is walking that life and then because she's as such a lie, it's mine. Your cheeks are actually coming out. I'm talking a little bit of right here. You can also take the shadow German this side of her. Nunes known that to the very edge of her nose was catting perfected by If you don't want to go wait in there when anything is gonna be pretty dark in comparison to the rest of her skin. Actually, let's not forget her lips because over, uh, your claim that banker color in the rest of her face this year start going in years, who let that dry next, We're gonna warm off her face, going to get some matter Brown, which is he are 206 and we're gonna try to, but that anywhere where your face is a bit redder. So obviously, in her case, it was pretty red lips. Not everybody does that. She has some pretty read lives. We can see a lot more of readiness of her skin as it turns over to the right hand side cheeks. There also, it's a bit British. The shadow under here gets a lot cooler, but it's easier to put cooler colors on top of warmer colors that we can just extend that all the way out here and then put the course color on top later. Oh, since we're here, it comes air our history. Well, no, obviously. And not everybody's guns are a pain in. My gums are in pink, but many people's goes are pink. We can put that in. Okay, now we're going to get pretty dog and mixed it up with the I 41. Uh huh. 1 79 You be 16. That's just to keep it a little warm. We'll see. You know that you look like a pricing out, okay. And else they bring their put in dark spaces between the teeth, - your eyebrows. This I don't put those in as, like, one solid shape, but rather as ums strokes Following the direction of the hair group does he could probably turn. This is really where the portrait starts to come alive. There's a shadow around that swing. Is it sparking, right? Not just sitting on top her face e need Teoh a p b 60 because I ran out of that really dark next. No, I'm here to be praised. I put in some really dark areas right in the middle of her face. That's always a little scary. - Dropping theme instead of paper is with just just wait turning except way, way for that. Making sure to put that shadow that comes in it. Hopes that not look as much like a cartoon character. In her case, she also has come about, and this seems like it is going into her eyebrows in the corner of your smile. Nice thing that you can water that down a little bit, but that is a shadow that goes around the whole I way. Theo todo shadow. Sometimes you just way highlights on that a little bit more depth and Teoh going back in with dark color. I really have to go really dark, have it 14. Purple: My Portrait Painting Secret Weapon: so that was a simple way of painting. Portrait. It's now I want to tell you about my being grit way of painting pictures. When I was learning how to paint people, I really wanted to make them look alive. But I couldn't figure out how to do that. But then I finally figured it out and I want to share that secret with you. Are you ready? Here is the secret is purple OK? What purple? No, really, it's purple. 15. The Magic of the Purple Underpainting: What do we mean? Purple? OK, so here's what I mean. My favorite way to paint a portrait is with a purple under painting. First of all, what is an under painting? You don't often hear that term when talking about watercolors, but it is a very common technique when talking about other painting mediums, especially oils. Basically, an under painting is painting your subject with just one color in oils and acrylics. This is often black births. Yana Burn number or gray. In the case of gray, this is called Kasai. Some people also use these colors in watercolor, but I found the color that disappears into the final painting the best without making it gray and dark is purple. Why is that? Well, skin tones are often reddish, yellowish or orange is colors, since purpose compliment is yellow. That local mixed together create brown, which is the color of Milliman, a k a. The perfect color that we want our portrait's to be. But why would I want to paint my portrait twice? By using an under painting, you can separate the process of painting colors and figuring out value, just like when we used software to isolate the values to make it easier to see this does the same thing when you're painting. Oh, then we have separated the process of figuring out the crack value and figuring out the correct color. As I've said before, the most important thing in any painting is getting the correct value. That is what makes a painting look realistic instead of flat. Once you have the correct value, the colors don't matter as much. And with an under painting it, it's way easier to get the correct values down first. That's why I love it. 16. Layering: The Key to Living Skin: The second important thing of my favorite way of painting portrait is layers. Lots of think about how your own skin is composed of layers. Real skin has three different layers, with blood fat and hair running through all of that. It's not just one solid thing, so how could we paint it in one solid color? What we see when we look at skin is kind of like a stained glass window. It is essentially light passing through red or oxygenated blood blue or de oxygenated blood and all of that scene through Melanie. So that's exactly the way that I like to paint. I use layers of red, blue and yellowish brown is paint to approximate meal living skin. Normally, I start with a layer of yellow. Then I read on blue, and I just keep cycling through these colors until I get the effect that I'm looking for. It takes a long time, but I think it's worth it. 17. Undertones: Why all Skin is Not the Same: undertones. Anyone who has ever had trouble finding the correct shade of foundation knows exactly what I'm talking about. It's easy to talk about skin tones in terms of light, medium dark, but that's for sure, not the end of it. Just as important as a lightness or darkness of the skin tone is Thea Undertone. Some people have cool undertones, meaning reddish undertones, and some people have warm undertones, meaning yellowish undertones. This supplies from the very light of skin all the way down to the very darkest skin, of course, for very light skin and very dark. Then you might find some other colors, which are important to add to your portrait. Very light skin and very dark skin often have some blue to them. You may also see a bit of purple in very dark skin. With my skin, it's pretty easy to tell that I have a yellow undertone, right? So if you were to paint me with reddish colors, it wouldn't be white right to paint my skin. I would start out with some golden colors and build up from there. Let me make a couple of examples of warm and cool skin tones here is a very light skin tone . This undertone is bluish and this undertone is more Pinkett. Here is a light skin tone. This undertone is more red and this undertone is more yellow. Here is a medium skin tone. This undertone is more red and this undertone is more yellow. Here is a dark skin tone. This undertone is more red and this undertone it's more yellow. Here is a very dark skin tone. This undertone it's more read. This undertone is more blue and this undertone is more purple. 18. Painting a Very Pale Portrait: So we're going to start with this example of very pale skin. This is an albino boy and, like always, going to start with my purple. I have to like to start the nationals rooms because that area is very dark. Also like I've said before. Underneath other lip underneath the bottom lip years are actually quite dark. An area that often takes a lot of extra care is to make sure that the nose is well defined . And I'm already putting in that shadow across the top of the I and join me that both the years are in shadow and also we're neck. Most people's next are in shadow because your face is walking the light, putting in that you can see his pupils the darker and that Khan cave circle, where the eye socket is the right side of his face and starker, and his hair is casting a shadow on his face. So I'm putting in that shadow with really water you wash. It's difficult because his hair is white, so you don't want to put in too much color there, but you have to put in some in order for it to look realistic. A lot of things, though. This is just thinking. OK, what is darker here than Southern Part? Where is the light hating? So the light is hitting him from the left hand side that we try to make the right hand side overall a bit darker while maintaining highlights that he has his cheek burn wounds by his knows about his chin and things like that, - landing just a little bit of texture to his hair because on the sides it's cropped short. But then he has these long strokes on the top, which is pretty fun to pain. And oftentimes your mouth kind of pushes out, so there's a bit of a shadow circling around it. - And then you just keep going back and refining, putting a little more detail into that hairs. Like me. He have hair, and it doesn't just go into the light of a huge making sure that that you eyes quite dark and making sure that you have that darkness underneath the eyelid as well. Subsets of frighteningly tired. But I try to make sure to lift out that highlight the bottom whip, which is quite full, so it's catching the light on his years think the Shadow is actually a lot darker on the top than it is on the bottom. So I create that down and then when I'm comfortable, and I think that I have a pretty Ulis tick under painting and I feel like I can actually see that he is a person of theirs, form there. That's when I start the whole process of adding colors on top. So I'm starting with actually very cool yellow because he doesn't have a lot of warm tones in his skin and you don't want to warm him up too much. So that's P Y 1 50 which is an amazing color. It's just really great for everyone and just putting that in everywhere where I feel I see a bit of yellow with some people. I would just do a wash all over, but especially because he's Guinness so, so pale. Definitely not going to do that. I would end up making him look to yellowing. Nice thing about the yellow is that it ends up taking out a bit of that perfect holiness in the skin, next, moving on to read. He has pretty red lives, putting that in and anywhere receive warms a lot of people. People have very warm years because that skin is very thin, so make sure to put that in the inside of the nationals because you can actually see through that skin is also often really warm, because what you're seeing is the blood vessels in the skin. Little kids often also have pickier skin because because they have better blood circulation than older people, but they're often pretty pink underneath the eyes has thinner skin than other parts of that often is either bluish or pinkish, depending on how your skin even how he slept, especially since he's all final. His skin is often pretty pink because he doesn't have that melon and blocking it. So basically, instead of melon and oxygenated blood into action, you're but you're just saying that oxygenated antioxidant blood. So I'm adding blue to cool down different areas, most shadows and normally a bit cooler. Some people have warmer shadows, but most people have Chloe shadows on their face, and I definitely want to make sure to cool down a lot of the shadows on his face because he doesn't have a really warming yellowy days. I think that in underneath all the hair and that whole right side of his face that's in shadow, trying to keep it pretty soft. I'm using two brushes, one smaller Russian, one larger brush, and I'm putting down the color with one brush and softening that out with the other brush around this point, the painting often looks kind of Technicolor Dream, a little bit crazy, a little bit messy. I kind of like it at this stage. It's not exactly realistic, but it's kind of fun. If you wanted, you could stop here and have this really artistic portrait. But you can keep going the different layers to get a more realistic in terms of color portrait. But you can also see what I meant. So now I'm going a little warmer, reminding a little bit of peel 48 of that P Y. 50 because there are a couple of places that he has a little bit more warmth in that Yo, and you can tell I'm not putting it everywhere. You start out with these bigger areas of washings and you get smaller and smaller and smaller because you're just adjusting small spaces. A lot of this is going into his hair because his hair is kind of like Blondie whitey kind of color. So that's actually room. Also, that's going. So if you make a mistake, you can always just scrub it out with a very sturdy brush. But not to her that you damage the paper and then just put a tissue on top of it and you can leave it up now I'm going to the red. I did yellow. Next is red again. This PR tool six was was a bit of a deeper than that PR to seven and a little more neutralized. And that's really giving you bad blood. Look, p r. Two of six meagre for that blood like look that frown matter. It is going around the nostrils, the cheek eyes, especially in the corner of my eyes. Most people have a little bit of pink in those extreme corners of the eyes where the connective tissue is on a hill. That's very important to me. You look like a living person, and then I'm jumping right into that really dark pp 41 pp 60. And this is really where orchards turned to take off when you putting in those really dark dark. Some people are afraid with them in. You cannot be afraid them in, because it is that value range that really makes your portrait pop. So it's in the same space is that I explained to you before about values in the corners of the eyes and think of the pupils, the nostrils, the corners of the lip, the years putting it in there to make sure that you can see Hi, socket. He has a very heavy brows over a shadow underneath there and see you already, and makes his eyes look much more piercing when they did before. Now that you've added at darkness, I seem much brighter. That's counterintuitive, but that's really hot works. The darkness accentuates the lightness, so I'm just watering that down as well and heading that who's a different shadow areas, especially that right side and under the neck. But the top lip underneath that hair, mixing up a sort of greenish color for his eyes because his eyes are a bit greenish, really bluish. That's P B 26 P. Y. 43 adding in a little bit. His eyebrows are piles a bit difficult because once again, he has thes white ish highbrows. You can mess that out if you really wanted to. No, I'm doing here is just kind of putting in the color and plotting a little, so I get a little bit of the color, but then I don't get the full intensity. And when you have so much white, it's really useful. Often to put in the background is when you have a background, could really see the whiteness and the lightness of the subject. And I feel like this glue background really makes him pop and stand on. You can see how pale, here's and their use and cute little boy. 19. Painting a Pale Portrait: Now we are going to paint a pale portrait. Her hair is black, so I'm going in and just putting the purple there as I know that it's going to be very dark . I'm not really paying that was attending to him, just kind of feeling it in. I have a basis for this dark hair, making sure not to cover her ears. And then, like I said, I like to put in the shadow underneath the nose, go into the lips, did eyebrows on this first layer. I'm just putting it in a solid shape and then later put into detail her pupils and the con cave shape of the eye socket and then making sure to maintain her cheek. She has really full cheeks and a really full chin, so I'm trying to make sure to maintain that and emphasize the roundness and the fullness and the plumpness of it and going around her nose. Her nose is not very big. It's kind of small, both courted sticks. House is a bit of a highlight on the nose, and I want to make sure to emphasize those smile, creases and that little space underneath their lives because she has pretty full lips, but I had a shadow there. She has some dimples. I want to make sure they have those in there. It's pretty cute, and now I'm actually starting to go and put a little bit of texture into the hair. Just putting some strokes in there, not a time getting really dark. In some places, the people is the lives, the nostrils underneath the eyelid increase of the eye, using pretty small brushes, corners of the eyes around the iris and right underneath her lips making sure that her highest quite dive her years of clay dog. And now I'm finally actually gonna go in and put the individual hairs and the eyebrows. You shouldn't just start out there is going to be kind of weird. But I started doing that after I put in the Journal of Shape and then following the direction of Cairo. Making sure that she has a bit of her under eye is a little bulging outside, trying to make sure to not leave a darkness right next to her I and so that you can see that kind of puffiness there. There's a lot of puffiness in her face. It is a pretty endearing Her Cuba's Bo has a shadow, making sure not to forget that. So these things really make it a very distinct face and not a generic face or an idea of a phase going back in with the hair again and doing a bit of the different clumps there. So you're starting to see a little bit more form of Hyleas. Thank you So, no, I think it's time to start adding some color, starting with P 0 48 And to be honest, this is a little bit more yellow and probably should use for your skin. But I really wanted her to have this kind of warm, yellowy pinky feeling. So it really depends on how totally accurate you want to be the picture and how much you just want your interpretation and your feeling about it. Moving on to the red Now, when this is PR 1 77 and he are 207 for the lips here and definitely going to have it under eye area cheek area of the top of her head, her nose. She has a lot of things going on in her face, but not the same kind of think that we had with the young boy, which is really this cold pink. This is much warmer. She has this sort of healthy. You look about her so the warmth is in a lot of the same areas, according of the eyes, the cheeks really trying to put a lot of in there because she has this healthy blush in her cheeks. She kind of almost looks like she's cold, but you're starting to see the volume forming, getting onto the blues now, cooling things down, fighting in those deepest shadows underneath the nose, underneath the chin, those dimples, the eye socket, the parts of her face that are turning away from us and in shadow, notice that I'm not using quite as much blue on her as I did on the young boy who had much bluer skin. The areas are much more sparing, even underneath the neck, and this was Prussian blue PB 27. I'm adding that same blew through the hair, often first going with purple, this black hair and then I go over it with blue and then eventually go over with the bar. So now we're back to our yellow. This is a little bit deeper. Have a yellow This is yellow Joker p Y. 43. It's a little deeper, a little more de saturated, and that's going to help to calm down the purple. And that's also just going to gave us a diva card. Each time We're going from light to dark. So even though I'm going yellow, red, blue, I'm also going deeper yellow, a deeper Riyadh in a deeper blue each time, and the area is getting smaller and smaller. And really, a lot of times you're going back into the very same areas trying to build the form there. Now I'm testing my colors. It's important for you to test your colors to see what you like. I'm using TV 19. I really wanted this kind of magenta color for her. I thought it would be really perfect for what's going on in her cheeks, and I feel like it brings ah, bit of brightness to that area with a little too much on her lips. So I doubt that away. But I was perfectly fine with using that on the neck. Don't use in too many areas, and also be careful because it can stain really, really easily. Don't leave it alone. In her case, I'm also putting it around the eyes. She has a bit of that connective tissue showing and I don't have it over the entirety of the lift because the entirety of live is not the same color. Now we're going to a deeper blue that's PP 60. After go for impression blue two pp. 60. Going into that here again, trying to add a bit of that texture. So it has a little bit of a feeling. I'm not just being a solid block around this time. I normally put the PP 60 into the deepest, darkest areas the nostrils, the area between the lives. The corner of the eyes started putting in the eyebrow hairs again. The crease of the eye pupil. I like to leave the highlight and the people not to have a complete circle, but have that little gap for the highlight. And actually it's often quite dark at the edges of the nose because I know there's sticking out from the face. It has pretty deep shadow on either side of it, okay? And that helps to give a bit of distinction there and I'm also adding that underneath the neck to put that back into shadow and underneath the little puffiness she has underneath her eyes, he has a little bit of the tip on either side of her smile. And I want to make sure that you can see that little dick there. Now we're moving on to brown. We've gone through the red, yellow, blue and now we're going into the dark colors. PB 41 of you be 60 and going into the hair. Like I said before making sure that you have some texture. I'm not just putting one color over it right now. You can do that later. Or you can leave it this way, depending on how much blue and purple you want in your final version of the hair. Personally, I kind of like how it looks, but I know it might be a little weird to some people. You just trying to follow the flow of the hair, look at where the highlights are and make sure that seems natural, adding that same colors for the eyebrows. And now you can see the rest of the purplish anymore, and they have a natural look into the eyes, and that's just like with the young boy. That's really frightening her up because it has the comparison of the very dark color and right next to it, into her dimples. The little creases. And I'm using a really small brush here, so I'm not heading really aton in any of these places. You don't want to add it on that. You need to add enough, and you can see a form of the face that edge there, where her hair is causing a bit of shadow underneath the chins that you can see that it around and training going back in with a little more rib mixing and testing colors. But you should always be doing, and they don't feel like the lips were exactly what I wanted. So I makes up people 73 NPR, 1 22 by the topless, and I'm cutting in her eyelash shooters, and that's 20. Painting a Medium Portrait: though Now we're doing the medium or trip starting out. We've been starting out with purple because her hair is dark. I'm starting out here often. I'll just put in the massive hair, but I, I know, wanted to follow the little her hair, a little mourn and just have fun putting in those clams. I'm still not really doing individual strands. Anything we about the following that's the general shape of her hair and leaving highlights cause she has a lot of highlights on the top of her head. I don't want that to just be one all mass. Oh, shoot. I'm going back. It was the little darker purple and giving a little variation. Teoh clumps that ever put in it is starting to play hair and then and buy her eyebrows. The people's on anything. I, uh I probably got this by down the nostrils. I actually really like in glasses because of the shadows that very form on the face. So the shadow of the glasses on the nose first and the glasses themselves are quite dark. So I'm putting that in his well underneath the top of underneath the bottom with as a bit of a rounded chin. So that space between her lip in her tune in her ear, I don't want to see the other years over a little bit, then that back into shadow, going to make that bottom part of a hair very dark because it's a lot darker than the top part of her hair. Because of the shadows, I want you to be able to see that I'm doing that with a watery purple walk that's going down into her forehead now going in and making the shape of the I the conclave nous of it, adding a bit. Wish it to the nose, getting underneath the nose there. Often the corners of a both are a bit burger, so I kind of graduated that from the outside in now, trying to put it in the form of a cheek jaw. Eyebrow bridge. That's their Your eyebrows are kind of pokes out a bit, depending on how prominent, and I'd rather do you have more. Only men have a much stronger one than women do will make sure to, but that end over in both genders, mixing up some more purple. Finally, she has got the tone that I wanted to the little darker being that in underneath the hairs of the eyebrows, now that I have a shape and from the edge of the people now it looks actually is looking at you. Those nostrils always good to have a nice and dark corners with a smile, and there's a bit of a shadow on the inside of the bottle up, so putting that in and use that increases that are there more eyebrows, he said. I in the corners of the room, so you kind of have the pattern by now, I think being in very water in version around the edges of the I, because I have a steer safe. So the parts that are going far away from are, which are there left and the right side are in a bit of shadows. I put that in so you can see around this other putting in her Cuba's boat and that area around the mouth, which is in shadow because the mouth itself pushes out. But she doesn't have this puffy oven under I as the women in the ill demonstration so I could bring that darkness right out to her. I leading just a little sliver of lightness going in there and darkening up the whole right side of her face has pretty defined features. So it's really important to get those values right. Yes, high cheekbones. No one knows continent when it lives. A little more shadow on the edges of that forehead was before is also quite round. The middle part isn't highlight, but the edges are in shadow. Think working up those glasses again. You don't want them to get lost. Quite dog. Now I'm moving onto adding color, though this time I'm actually putting the go in on her lips as well, because I see you in who lives as well as the rest of her skin. And this is really going on almost all over, not exactly distance straight wash, but basically all over because he has very yellowing cold instant. Then I want to make sure that we have a nice foundation of that. You'll forget her neck, moving on to read. We have our 206 That yellow was Pio, 48 so they talk about their certain places that tend, have more warmth. Love knows on around the eyes by return because of the thin yes, of the skin there. Sometimes I like to play that up just to you. But a kind of a warm feeling that that's really up to you is warms and her years, the top of you, the lives No anything knows by the shadows, the casted by the classes, by eyes by her Teague's you notice. I'm using a lot of listening colors that I used for the pale woman, but in higher concentration, using that same people 27. And I'm going to go in and cool things down a bit, doing the hair going in and adding another layer of texture. I'm not saying that in just in a straight waas, but following the flow occur here, and it's also just find, actually, to use your brush like is to make the value long flowing lines over. Her hair is not her glasses, so be careful about that, even though the tone is very somewhere. Really, all I'm doing is using a lot of the same colors just in different concentrations, continuing to preserve the highlights in her hair while darkening it, taking it a bit out of that proposal going back in on the classic movie and in all those really dark places, what is it for now the people mooney the eyelid around the outside of her nose so that you can see the shadow it is casting on her face, the hairs of the eyebrows that shadow at the bridge of her nose on underneath the glasses, trying to make sure you can see it. A player of the nostril. So putting in that little David there and office, he had a little David underneath her bottom. Lips are trying to make sure you have that thinking her eyes a little more into the car. Shock it while also trying not to need, who looked like she was bloodshot eyes with bags under her eyes. That's a little difficult. I think it's a little scary to put so much darkness under the eye because you don't want it to look like she was really sleepy or something like that. You know, she's pretty pale. I'm going to pump that up quite a bit. Some people already nine and you can see right away. That's a lot with a lot darker. We're getting a lot closer to her actual skin tone and feeling a lot more alive and not so pale. That's going in a lot of places on your feet, basically anywhere that isn't a highlight over almost all of the shadows being the same thing with this red PR 1 79 miles, actually quite a deep red, but I'm just jumping right in there. It's sort of a brick. Read it, which is perfect for her, una in there by the lips with a pretty small price, I think. Sure not to just and in the lips. Probably. I don't make sure that it has for and just the same way. It's going in a lot of the areas that has warrants, but not the same sort of worms as we have with the lighter color. It's warm and in shadow. Don't forget that that shadow of her T goes up into the glasses area and the same work. Does it hurt you in the corner over. I have a better place with that. Color has a great attention around her. Last I wanted that you could see that No, I'm mixing of a deep blue will be 60 mpg 27 night and just groceries and pp 60 years putting that in with the hair and sort of going home to hair, leaving some highlights. And the thing is, the layers of thes different, consistent textures is what will make it look as though you've painted different strands instead of actually continue to Phyllis Fan. You don't have to be you very precise as long as you're following the flow of the hair in the way that it actually moves. As always, a chemical steak described it out with a stiff. These pants are pretty staining, so you don't have to worry really about losing your entire picture. No taking that same blue and really enforcing the darkest areas in the face and the eyebrows as well. I want to maintain the shape of the nose. Annals under the eye passes shadows under the eyes. It's taking anywhere where I feel like this. It has not been highlighted enough or the tone of not quite right if it's too warm, definitely to add the blue to cool it down a bit. That's nice thing about this. You can always go down a color. It's a lot harder to warm up the core, but it's with you even to close it down. That's why it's nicer to start warmer and then cool it down, going in with another even deeper yellow color. This is the 41. It's very brown. Oh, are going in there anywhere. I still do the new for this warm, reddish yellow, though the thing about fighting to darker skin tones you can't be scared. You go in there with color, and I'm not just talking about blacks are really deep grounds where you have to really go in there with all the colors. Now we're adding, be 16 because I think I'm ready. Those really dark her hair. It isn't just holy black. It's pretty brownish. So I'm putting in, goes around pretty dark, thrown into her hair, and you can kind of see how that immediately changes. The look of the painting it really goes from looking like a sketch with purple hair is starting to look a lot more like a person, menacing coloring to her eyes and staying the same thing to her eyes. The darks really are the most fun part of these paintings, because the extreme value just add so much up. But you wouldn't have otherwise that you can see even though that's actually any team that ground. It's not like she is looking really dog or very far away from what her skin tone is. It's just giving her even more form and shape running a little bit more, maybe 60 mixing up us somewhere, shape a little darker, having that to her glasses on any live using pretty small brushes now getting pretty dark in some areas. Almost black, but not quite. But we're getting there. Well, I really love how that saved highlight is really glistening, putting in for eyelashes that you really need to follow the shape of the I. They don't go all in this direction. I know Bill underneath the eyelid a little bit, bringing that same darkness here, but you really get the full of steps that is bare. And that really helps to show off the golden nous in her skin tone, deepening those years because I want them to sit back. Same thing with the neck, and I just wanted to warm up her lips a little bit. I didn't feel like warming up this kind of mixing a bunch of different reds together, and he's actually a pretty bless you around the little her face just padding that in there . I felt like she felt a little pill, and I wanted Teoh up that color. If you need to adjust, you can always go in pretty big washes. These colors that I'm using are pretty staining, so they should not Let's leave you. I mopped up where there are some highlights and I'm sure I'm not just making a miss. You want to leave your high life? Lugar also re important. This is important as the shadows are the highlights. And I just really wanted to be shocking pink and the lives you can tell when you actually put it on It doesn't look that shocking, but it just adds a little pop and there she is. 21. Painting a Dark Portrait: next we have the dark portrait already, Uh, as usual with purple has a lot of darkness in that right side neck area. So just putting that in, darkening up all the usual areas. The eyes, the ears, eyebrows, piece of the eye, the nostrils underneath the top, lip underneath the bottom. Live the hair he has. Black hairs are in putting that in here. Putting it in more is a solid shape because it's much more of us all the shape but keeping that hairline pretty soft. So it's got really sharply jetting into his skin, trying to put in a lot of shadow there on the right hand side, because you basically can't actually see that jawline. So basically trying to covering up there, I'm putting in the shape of his nose, trying to preserve Ah, highlight. That's there, as always, feeling in the concave eye socket. His face is turning away from you at the far left, so that is going into shadow, you know, so they're pretty big, so making sure that you can see that and putting just kind of squiggly lines for the beard because he has a kind of graffiti, scraggly beard and just putting in a bit of the mustache show that I remember that's there as well. I really don't want to be afraid of putting the shadows and different values into this portrait. He is very much in shadow, and there are some areas of highlights with us really important to keep here. Make sure that you don't just end up covering the entire thing in darkness is really important here to remember where the highlights are. We still has that in his forehead, on parts of his nose, his cheeks. Since it's hard to get that back, really try to preserve and some of the other paintings. A lot of the painting was left with very light washes on the white of the paper. But most of this painting is going to have color on it. It will only be a few places that have that very little washes on it. And the extreme highlights putting in his eyebrows. They're a little different because they're kind of Curly. Actually, they're kind of like fine, though they're not really long strokes and the depth of the years actually really dark place. So never forget Teoh, have that there, as you go out from the inside of the ear. It gets more and more light putting in these structures, going back and putting in the people. The shadow underneath the eyelid frieze of the I, learning a little bit more to those eyebrows, adding to the corners of the mouth underneath the mouth, where they want to make sure that you can see the lightness of his nose, the fullness of his lips, which are quite Pillay. He also that his nose is quite Ron. It doesn't have a very high nose bridge, so make sure to maintain that form. Some people have problems painting. Then they say that they come out looking very much like women. But really, the technique is exactly the same. Just try to paint what you see and to make sure that you are actually paying attention to what's in front of you. But I'm darkening off his hair and giving it a little bit more form. But it's a bit darker towards the base, letting that feather out into the end and adding a lot more shadow on that right hand side , which is where it's almost impossible to actually see any major features of his face, putting that back into the air in his chin. Islip, which is a little bit more in shadow on the edges, very softly in the harsh shadows. His whole eyes are very dark. He has black eyes, as always. If you ever make him saying just scrub it out, everybody makes mistakes. The important thing is to know how to fix them. There's nothing wrong with making them to begin with. I just take a while here, trying very carefully to make sure that I have. He could range of values that their matching what I want them to be before I start putting in color. And part of that is, I really want to make sure that a great hand side is very dark. I want to make sure that you can see that he has a three D look to him before you even start going in with the color that his nose is defined. His either define his ears, lips, everything that is going around, looking to see what areas need my shadow, what areas don't seem quite like their three D shape and more look like they're already cut out, because if something looks like a cutout. That probably means that you haven't said it into the face with a shadow. All parts of the phase have, ah, complex interplay of light and shadow. No, I'm trying to kind of go in and get some texture kind of flopping the rush around, getting a little bit more of that curly pattern in the hair, putting that shadow around the edges of the ice so that the eye looks more like a spear instead of a flat surface and getting underneath your eye. There is eyelid, and there's a bit of sweets that catches the highlight and then a right to decide often a bit of a sharp shadows, putting that in there, thinking a big wash with darkness. I like to not just hit the color and go for full darkness at first, because it's easier to make sure that you're not making a really big mistake that way if you build it up slowly. So even though I knew that that side was going to be really dark, I started off pretty light. Some people like to start a lot darker than I dio, and that definitely makes the painting process a lot quicker. The important thing here is really, really try to hit all of your darks at this stage because if you try Teoh, get those really, really dark darks later on with the colors. It's a lot easier for you to go, buddy and not really be sure what you're doing. I really try to make sure that I have some deep, deep tones already here at this purple stage, you can see that the hair really deep, pulling in and shaping the nose. I don't think so that you have what really is true shape around the eyebrow, but leaving that highlight in the middle underneath that I, the people's doing the same thing with the hair tienen xer that I don't forget his facial hair. Doesn't you see thing for me to forget because you often put that in much later, so I often try to put it in at least a little bit at this stage, really bringing that shadow on the right side. Macy. They're still highlight by his chin by the tops of his cheeks, even on hand slip. Even dark skin like this is not just Holy Dark has highlights and shadows, but we're moving onto the yellow. But in this case, the yellow is not quite yellow. It's 49 so that's already decided, rated already darker because it doesn't really make sense to start with something like the P. Why 1 60 that I started with for the very fail boy, you have to look at your picture and see what is actually the lightest tones that you're seeing in that picture it in that skin tone, and in this case, it's much darker. So we're just going to start at this darker level you can already see them putting in. We're getting pretty close to where we need to be as much as I do. Like living it is better to keep the number of Larry's to minimum if possible. You wanna that your color is best as you can to avoid getting muddy, so we're moving into the red now. This is gonna be E. R. 206 You can tell I use that color a lot, putting it in in the lips because he actually has quite warm lives. I think some people are afraid of putting warmth in, then slips. But just like women, men's lips have thinner skin, and some of them have redder lives, and some of them have darker loops. I actually have a very dark top lift and a red bottom lip. No putting that red around same areas I lived the nostrils by his 10 is a decent, a warm round of warmth in his face, and they want to make sure that you can see that unlike listen with the other paintings. That is not much of a blush effect going on for him. Next we're moving into blue, and that blew into the hair, but not evenly. Kind of like in a textured fashion, trying to get that curly hair pattern feeling playing that also into the eyebrows and under the nostril, the corners of the lips. It's cooling down some places. There's some places that are pretty cool. So making sure that we get that you already we haven't even put black into the painting or even a really deep brown in his eyes are looking very dark and the shadows underneath the nose there looking very dark. The lettering is progressing the way that it should be. On this combination of colors. The blue doesn't look quite as blueish because it's steps that just looks more like shadow . I'm just putting in a ton of the bigger to just obliterate that ID of the jaw and have that whole area be in shadow. I'm doing this wet and lead so that it was pretty soft. There's a lot of water finally sure doesn't go into the ear and putting it really everywhere that I see a deep, cool shadow into that hair on his chin. Now we're moving into the deep rounds. I'm not going through a second at a really light colors. I'm already moving into the Browns. Basically, you just try to move into a bit more concentrated colors more quickly when you're working with darker skin tones. And this is working in a very much a seemingly as the pew 49 dead, except it darker because he's also looking a bit pale. He needs to get much browner, so we're going to make sure that he doesn't end up looking away too pale. And a lot of this is really just going back into the same areas and touching them and tweaking them and thinking. Although this looks a little warmer, this looks a little yellow where this was a little darker, just comparing one area against another. I had skipped over the red section and went straight to you. BB 60 wanted to just get some. Lunch is of darkness and in the eyes and nostrils under the lives. This really gives a lot more definition so that it's not looking quite so soft. It gives it a little bit more sharpness. Andi, as you going towards the end with the darkness, you really don't want to blend quite as much. Some areas you're just going to leave rate of color, and that's how you get a bit more sharpness. It's really tempting to blend out everything. Believe me, I know the long because I'm not using granulated colors. You're not seeing this really speculatively pattern on his skin, either. I'm trying to be very precise about where I'm placing the colors, and if I do blend on little blending a little bit, I'm not adding tons of water like I was adding before. And you can kind of see the glowing highlights and shadows and his face already coming out , working a little bit with the Reds and now trying to see what is a good color? So I decided on PICO 65 because this woman that he was looking pretty pale and I wanted to put in a fairly big, almost wash over it didn't feel like he was at the right color. And Peel, 65 seem to really fit historian. Sometimes that color is a lifesaver, and I think you can see that already. He's starting to look a little bit more realistic, and even we put it over that facial hair. It's already starting to look much more accurate, so trying to figure out colors here. So here we have people 48. I wanted it a little bit more yellowy in some areas, actually went back and went back of the post steps and just added that. But at first, when I did, I was a little scared that I had turned him into a pumpkin. But always remember that the colors are way more of Iran. Then they're going to end up being when they dry and we had dry down, it didn't look so crazy, and I started adding PR 1 77 on top to warm him up in a little bit. D pumpkin defy him, and I felt like that was really looking perfectly like his skin at that point. An interplay of this yellow and this red and these browns just like anybody skin and I haven't brought out any burnt number or anything like that yet. So far, these air the same colors that I have used on all of the other portrait. It's now I've made a mixture of colors that are very dark, and that does include Bert number. But I know that I don't use this color all over, and I would use the same color on any of the way. The portrait it's This is a make sure just to make sure that we get extra super dark and we get that Phil range of values because it's really easy with watercolors to not get the full range of colors. You don't want it to end up looking to washed out Oh, in all those crucial dark areas around the nose by the eyes by the lives of the years and putting in with a very small, fresh the's hits of darkness to make sure that they didn't get lost underneath all of those other layers anything that I feel in used to be a little sharper, a little deeper, a little darker, making sure that you can see that curve of the eye again. So the edges are little in shadow underneath the island and shadow. I almost forgot that he has a mustache. I'm putting that in. He doesn't have very much of a mustache, but let's not forget that that's there. I was putting that in with some really life strokes going in the direction of the hair. And so the one area that I'm using this a bit more of a quite dilute is on that right hand side, where there is that really deep, dark shadow. Sometimes I like to take this dark makes and diluted a lot and just add it in a couple of places. Not too much, because you don't really want to start getting this strange speckled book. I wanted to warm up the year a little bit, and now we're going to take a deeper version of the same next. Why somewhere makes and put it in on the hair because he doesn't have purple here. Let's toned that down a little bit, heading up. It more blue and making it even deeper, and I kind of like it where it is. And so I'm just cleaning up the edges. Though I was a little messy when doing booze and you control you just take a really stiff brush and go back in and clean those edges. The dude is at the very end of your painting because depending on how much clean you need to do, you can damage your paper and you can see we're doing a bit of there. But you can smooth it out afterwards with a bone folder and that fixes the integrity of the paper. There he is. 22. Painting a Very Dark Portrait: So here is the very dark demo, and I'm going to start out with Ripple, just like all the other times. But you'll notice that I'm using a slightly different technique. I really want her to have a really soft finish on her edges and shadows that could like feel like her face looks very soft, and the highlights are very softly graduating into the dark's. So I'm going to be using the wet and wet technique instead of wet on dry. You really just let the water do what it's supposed to dio. Some people are worried about controllability of using what Inuit. But really, as you can see, the paint doesn't just fly everywhere. It creates undefined edges, but that's exactly what you're going for in just one layer. You can really see how I am writing to build the form in her face, and you can always use a bit of tissue to pull out any highlights that you want. So around her lips by her, I buy her nose. I just use a bit of tissue, let it try a little bit, and then I went back in and added another layer of water because I wanted it be even darker and to develop your under painting pretty well before you start on adding the colors and she's for sure, a lot darker than this. And if you don't want the shadow to go in some areas, you can actually just use another brush to just would have lift it out of an area. And that's why I have to Brush is here. So even though you do have that softness and that kind of unpredictability, you can add a little bit of predictability. I controlling where it goes a little bit, just a little bit. He has kind of a cleft chins. I wanted to make sure that's there. You can see that the overall right hand side of her face is much starker now. We're not really working in which in wet now it's wet on dry. But you can see that the wit and let gave me this really beautiful soft template to work on top of, and I don't have as much work to do now when I just a little bit more women with. So I went. But again, that big brush, it's essential to use a big brush to make sure that you can get earlier is nice, and even you don't want it to be blotchy or have gaps and also be very gentle. When you're doing this. This purple is a staining purple, so you're probably not gonna budget. But it's still a good idea to be mindful of that. I'm going in a pretty dark herbal now and just really going into those areas. I love their where her neck. She has a line and just getting. She has such high G phones and defined features and making sure that I'm getting that in there and especially she has her hand there and this was starker and her face because in shadow is pretty thin eyebrows. But I'm putting that in and making sure that the the shadows in her forehead are there. So it was a real darkness on her right hand side. The inside of her lips is a target on the outside because she has such big until we lived as it curves over towards the inside, it goes into shadow, for the top part is in highlight. That's a little bit more waiting with wanting to work on her forehead a little bit more and not we've had, quite is pale as it is, but you can see her face coming out here when it add in the shadows underneath. But she has a towel wrapped around her head in the tops of her pupils on anything eyelid sitting in a bit of her fingers, this very dark shadow between her hand in her neck. This is all wet on dry now, the edge of her nag. It's getting more sharp definition. The north stills, the inner corners of her mouth, making sure that you can see the shape of it underneath that bottom with you can see where her chin begins. The ear, which is mostly hidden, the shadow of the towel on her head the other year and the outside of her nostrils underneath the nose and the eye socket. Now we basically got a lot of our ripples in, and I'm just going to make sure she just add a little bit more bark nous to it. Get more of that eye socket. He's getting a lot closer to the correct value now, And even though she's really dark, you can even tell that in this state of the painting that her skin is quite dark, but it's not evenly dark because nobody skin is like that because the light is shining on it. And when light is shining on skin, it has highlights. You can actually especially see that in darker skin, the highlights are even brighter, and they are on paler skin, though the contrast is much higher in darkest game than it is in lighter skin. You're gonna have really, really, really dark parts and really, really light parts, whereas with lighter skin, things generally stay much more towards the mid tone. Things don't get ideas. Dog and things aren't quite his light. It is compared to the dark parts. - Okay , finally, it's time for color. But notice that I'm not going in with just a pain yellow. I am already going in there with brown. This is P 0 48 Phoebe are 41 and that's because her skin is already so dark. Your skin is quite cool, and this is a very warm color, but I'm putting it in where I see the warmth in where I know I can cool it off later that you really just try to start out with a greater depth of color, and you would with paler skin tones, not starting out quite a slight, but already starting out pretty dark, but not as dark as her darkest parts of her skin are pulling some color out with my brush Really big brush with It was really nice and soft. We're working with even larger brushes. Then I have been to make sure that the transitions are soft going in with this red here, even though her lips are quite dark, they stop a little bit of read to them. She has little bits of warmth around her face that it's not a pinky warmth. It's a bit more neutral. Is this thing nous at the inside of her lips? I have the same kind of effect on my lips. A lot of people actually have a bit more deeper red on the inside of the lips than the outer parts of their lives. Because I was PR to oppose six, which is one of my favorite reds to use for basically all skin tones. It really gives you the feeling of living skin. If there was one color, I would always recommend this color to use you going straight into BB 60 Not even going to I should blue and putting it on her bits. I know that sounds crazy that her lips are so dark in kind of purple, eat and cool that I'm toning down that red. Being it into all of the really dark areas actually has quite cool skin. They shouldn't be too afraid of going in there with some intense glue. Get at the top of the head because his hope of the hand is way dark, especially the part of the him is far away from us. That's all in shadow and her give and shadow on the outside of her nausea. Underneath the nose underneath the nose is important so that you see that it has a bottom side. If you don't put in a shadow on the bottom of the nose, you can't really tell that it has a shape that goes underneath. There's a lot of water on the page right now. I'm working, really, what, really softly. I really want to put in a lot of water like I told you before. It's really using to cool down colors that harder to warming back up again So you see how quickly, uh, PB 60 is cooling down an entire right side of her face. I wanted to make sure that I didn't get too far over into the middle of her face where the highlight is, and I don't want it to me, really. Just big pool diagnosis or just pulling and making sure I'm not going overboard, making sure that she had that highlight the bridge of her nose. Don't want to lose that. Your bridge, if we note, is quite low anyway. So I don't want to do anything to take away from that high right and can going back to the yellowish stage and we're going straight into a super dark color. That's BB 60 plus PBR 41. But we're moving down the levels of value much quicker with her portrait, but you can see that it doesn't really look unnatural or anything like that. - Putting in the shadow by her neck by her hand, and now it's really starting to look more like her. Are you actually get to her value instead of ah, purplish pale, getting much closer to her skin tone. It is deep and cool and really beautiful the shine that she has on that left hand side. I really want to try to protect it, but it's so bright and gorgeous. Okay, I like to do this shadow here with hand and the Knicks altogether that you can feel that that's one saw the shadow coming from her face sitting in the cleft chin, making sure that we don't forget these distinct features of the face. Sometimes I exaggerate them a little bit. I think that's fun. You now moving into the deep red. This is PBR 79 year Lima Room, which I often don't use by itself, but actually in skin that is as deep as hers. It gives us this most satisfying warm. I really love how it looks on her skin, putting it into all of those areas that naturally have a little bit of warm through them on the inside of her lives. Now I wanted a little bit more yelling nous. I'd rather sometimes to put a little less cause it's harder to take it away. I'm putting it in a little bit more yellow into her skin because I think that we did just a teensy bit too cool. She's not quite so for did I like the extremely cool look as well? But that adding in this yellow ogre held to liven up her skin a little bit him? I'm just kind of mixing it also with colors that already have there on the palate. Don't be afraid to make sure colors. Don't be afraid to use the mixes that you already have. I'm even putting that into her lips a little bit because often you have the same color of in your lips of the rest of your face. You be careful with yellow older because depending on the yellow over that you haven't made graduate a lot, and that can cause a strange texture. But this yellow Calgary but I have here from court, is very low granulated, and it's still Daniel is a little bit, but especially the way that I'm using it here. It's just adding a little bit more life to her skin, making it a little bit rounder instead of so cold and blue. So this is the PB 60 that I'm using very concentrated and adding another PBR, where you weren to make it extremely dark and going in there in the shadow underneath at towel that she has because, really, the deepest sorrows that she has on her face are newly black going into that area because she doesn't have purple eyes, she have black eyes number. You can dilute things as you need Teoh bringing her eyebrows Major fight spice actually is very thin. I rose, but already had the darkness there earlier in her nostrils. But just the top of it, so that you can see it gets writer towards the bottom and emitting a little bit that extremely diluted into her mouth. It's so pretty in those to you. I am not to make the lines in the stark and cartoonish, their darker at the top and lighter or the middle and Dr the Bottom again think of her crease of her eye, which is not very stark. It was really deep shadows that I want to make sure there the distinguish between the shape of her face, her hand and her neck and that right hand sided Leuthard and compares into the left hand side. So I really wanted to make sure you go in, put in that shadow which girls under the lip as well don't be afraid of your shadows. You know it's flattering. Leading her eyes very died the finding that socket, the top ability, which is darker than the rest of cheek. With the highlight, he lives there pretty dark and just going like in and adjusting that, making sure you have that roundness of the collective her chin. You just can keep doing this until you're happy. The nice thing about this makes sense. It's not granulated ing. You're not going to get strange records. If I used as much love burnt number in this mix, you can start getting some really strange shaves. I had a little bit too much obliterated in those woods, so I had to, you know, a bit and putting in her eyelashes, which are very curly, very full following the curve of I and just like with the very pale boy feel like with very dark skin. Having a contrast really helps get a CT what the color is here. And so I decided to put this really nice granulated ing black in the background. This is pitch black from whole bine, and now I really feel like her shape is popping out of the darkness. of that black and adding in a little bit of color into the title that she have around her head. So it's not just paper, a little bit of the diluted black blue color, but not too much because it still needs to read as light and that's it. 23. Extra Credit: How to Add Blush: flesh is a lot of fun, and some people have trouble adding it to their portrait. It's if you have been following the layering method, you have probably already added red to all the places where you see warm. But if you want that extra pop of bless, it's just really cute and exciting. Here's what you can do. Put down water first and then grab a little bit of your red color. Then put it down into the water that will help your color to gently disperse and not make any hard edges, that's it. 24. Wrap Up : What Did We Learn?: Okay, so let's just take a look of what we've learned. We've learned that value is the most important part of a successful portrait that gin tone colors are not necessary for painting skin. How to mix in tone colors and neutralize colored by yourself, too. Simple ways to get ready for painting Portrait It's the spear and the hand exercise. A simple way to paint a portrait. My favorite way to paint a portrait using layers and a purple under painting. Why undertones are crucial to getting a portrait, correct out to paint a range of intones and how to bring it all together in a detailed portrait. That's everything. Did you remember? 25. Class Project and Thank You!: thank you so much for taking this course help, but it was fun and that you feel confident in tackling all sorts of portrait's in a bunch of fun ways. Don't forget to complete your class project, which is to paint a portrait of anyone you like. I can't wait to see what you create. If you have any questions or comments, please post them in the community section. And if you enjoy the class, let me know whether you I seriously seriously get a smile on my face every time I read a review from you guys. And if you are not done and you really want to continue mixing colors and learn more about mixing colors and watercolors, I have two classes about that. Definitely check them out. Thank you so much again for watching See you in my next class. Bye.