Transcripts
1. Intro: [MUSIC] Hey there. I'm Tenia. I'm an artist based in Denmark and in this class we're going to take a look at how to make
skin tones in watercolor. We'll take a quick look at
some basic color theory to understand why colors mix
and react the way they do, we'll mix some basics
concerns to help understand what the
shades are made up of, we'll make a super simple
tool that can help you isolate colors when
mixing from a reference. For the class
project, we'll make some skin tone color wheels to help pick colors for
future paintings. Finally to round it all off, I'll show you the process of painting this
little color study, which is a great way to try out the color rules we just created. This is a third-class in my watercolor portrait
series so if you want to join me for mixing
some skin tones let's jump right into
it and get started.
2. Supplies: [MUSIC] Let's go with this applies. First off, you're going to
need some watercolor paper and if you have some
cheap watercolor paper, this is the perfect
time to use it. For the color mixing
portion of this class, I'm going to be using some
super cheap cold press paper. For the study at the
end of this class, I'm just going to be using
a small scrap piece of some hot press paper that I have lying around in my studio. You're going to need
some watercolors, and the amount of colors
you have is not important. The brand is up to you. I'm going to be using
my main palette, which does have
quite a few colors, but we're only going to
be using a few of them. You will need a brush. I'm just using one simple, worn-out old brush I have. This is a number 4
sable by Da Vinci. You will need a pencil and
something to cut paper. I'm going to be using
an X-Acto knife as well as a pair of scissors. But you can do just fine
with the scissors alone. You're going to need some
palette to mix your paints. Finally, you'll need a cloth, or some tissue for
wiping off your brush, something that
allows you to draw a circle and some clean water.
3. Basic Color Theory: [MUSIC] Before we dive into
mixing skin tones, we're just going to
do a crash course in color theory just
to get familiar with the very basics
and understand why the colors react
the way they do. We're going to begin by
making a color wheel. Before we get too
far into this, yes, I am going to be mentioning the names of the
paints I'm using, but please don't get too
caught up in the color names. Because not only
can colors vary, even if you have the same color from two different brands, those are likely going
to look different. But more than that, as long as you have
some variation of your primaries
in your palette, you should be able to mix
pretty much any color. Before you go out and buy
tons of colors that are completely unnecessary or
you're never going to use. Just have a play and mix some different colors from
the ones you've already got. If you then feel that
there are certain colors you just can't mix or
just can't get right, then expand on the palette
you'll already have. With that being said,
for the color wheel, you're going to need
your primary colors, so a red, yellow, and a blue. I'm using scarlet red, transparent yellow, and
ultramarine finest. If you mix together two
of your primary colors, you're going to get
your secondary colors. That would be purple,
orange, and green. If you've then mixed together
all your primaries that is where you're going to
find your neutral colors. That will be your
browns and grays. Next we have our
complimentary colors. These are the ones that sit opposite to each other
in the color wheel. That will be red and green, blue and orange, and
yellow and purple. When mixing together your
complimentary colors, you're also going to get
neutrals because you're mixing together a primary color
and a secondary color. You're mixing together
all three primaries. We're putting that
to the test here by mixing our green with the red. When talking colors, we also have to talk about
color temperature, so that will be warm
and cool colors. If you split your color
wheel down to the center, you've got your warm
colors on one side, so that will be your yellows, oranges, and reds. On the other side, you've
got your cool colors, so that will be your
greens, blues, and purples. That is at least
generally speaking, because for each color, you've got both warm
and cool tones. We're just going to swatch two of each of our primary colors. Representing the reds, we've got cadmium red,
and permanent carmine. For a yellow, we've got lemon
yellow and Indian yellow. For the blue, we've got ultramarine finest
and helio turquoise. You could debate that I'm
cheating by adding turquoise, but I'm just trying to find
some more extreme examples. When you compare them like this, you may be able to tell
that the ones on the left are warm and the ones
on the right are cool. The way you can
tell if a color is warm or cool is to see, which way it leans
on the color wheel. The cadmium red is very
clearly a lot more orange, whereas the carmine is much
more pink or purple in tone. The Indian yellow is a lot more sunny and orange and warm, whereas the lemon yellow
is leaning towards green. Even though the
ultramarine is not purple, it is definitely more purple
than the helio turquoise, which is definitely
more green in tone. I believe it's closer
to green than it is to red or purple in
the color wheel. Knowing these basics
can help you make better decisions
when mixing colors. As an example, if we want
to mix an orange, well, we can take our cadmium red
and add some yellow to it, and it's going to make
a beautiful orange. We already knew this
because it's so close to the orange side
in the color wheel. Now if we use that same cadmium red and we
want to mix it purple, it's not going to
go well because that red is telling
us that it's so far to watch the
orange that it's not even going to talk
to that blue color. It doesn't matter
what blue we use, that red is not going to be
friends with either of them or if our goal is to mix purple. Now if we wanted to mix
more neutral color, so some variation
of brown or gray, cadmium red may be the
exact color we want to use. Watercolors are known for
their luminous properties, so they are known for being
very bright and colorful. Therefore, a lot of
watercolorists are going to tell you that this
is a bad color combo. But the thing is that there's no such thing as
a bad color mix. It just depends on what
you want to paint. If you want to paint
realism, well, there are a lot of these more
muted neutralized colors in the real world. Just have fun and
explore your palette. Just because we can,
let's take our carmine and mix together with the
same two blue shades. For both of these,
you're going to get some shade of purple, even when mixing with
the ultramarine, which is a warm shade. Because even though the
shade of blue is warm, it is not as discriminating towards the other colors
as the cadmium red. It's still okay with
having a chat and saying hello to the other
side of the color wheel. This is a perfect
example of that, even though some
color mixes may do better being mixed by
either warm or cool tones, it doesn't mean you can't
intermix the two sides. It just depends on what
color you want to achieve. In your watercolor palette,
you can have as many or as few paints as you
feel comfortable with. But I recommend
having at least two of each of your primaries, so a warm and a cool version. If you want to mix
beautiful purple shades, may consider adding a pink. Because even though this is a classic color wheel that is being taught to most people, the real color wheel is actually cyan, yellow, and magenta. You can mix red and blue using
cyan, magenta and yellow, but you can't mix magenta and cyan using blue,
red, and yellow. That is worth noting
if you do want to use these colors
in your paintings. [MUSIC]
4. Basic Skintone Mix: [MUSIC] There are so many
different skin tones and this collage I've made
only covers a few of them. We will be taking
a look at mixing some colors for each
of these references, but for now, we're just
going to keep it super simple and just create
a basic skin tone mix. All you're going
to need for this are your primary colors. We're going to be using the
same ones I had before, which is scarlet red, ultramarine finest, and translucent or
transparent yellow. From the chicken mix, pretty much any skin tone
and when I say pretty much, it means that we can
mix any skin tone from the palest peels to the deepest richest
browns and blacks. But because we don't
have any variations, so we don't have any
cool and warm version of each and we don't
have a magenta or cyan, there are going to be
certain undertones that we're not going to
be able to hit fully, but we can still get close. So grab your primaries and
let's make some skin tones. For pale skin, it's often just a very diluted
version of orange and you can have one that is
leaning more towards the yellow or the reds and pinks. For pale skin and cool undertone is
usually going to appear more pink or rosy and a warm undertone is going
to appear more yellow. [MUSIC] Now as you move
from the pale mixes down towards the darker tones
in the skin tone spectrum, you want your paint mixes
to have less water and more pigment so that the paint mix becomes
richer and deeper in color. So in order to mix the
different skin tones all you want to do is adjust the
different variables. So that will be the amount of pigment or water
in your paint mix, as well as the amount of each of the primaries you
add to the mix. When it comes to undertones for medium and deeper skin tones, the cool undertones often
going to appear red or purple and the warm undertones
are going to appear peachy or golden. Then of course we have
neutral undertones in skins, so those are often going
to appear more olive. Have a go at mixing
some lighter, medium, and deeper skin tones and try to play around with
the different undertones. And in the meantime, we
can talk about some of the other factors
you can take into consideration when
mixing skin tones. One is the environment. So let's say someone is sitting outside at the beach
bathing in the sun. They are surrounded by
sand and their skin may take on a more
golden or warm feel. Now if that same person who goes into the shade in
a luscious forest, once that person is
now in the shade, but more so all that green surrounding them is going
to reflect onto the skin. This will also affect the skin tone or at least
how we perceive it. But even if we have one person standing in the same location, that person's skin
tone is not going to be just one color or shade. You'll usually or often see more red in the cheeks
where they're going to be a lot of blood flow
and you'll often see more greens or blues under
the eyes or around the chin. Places where the skin is thinner and the veins are closer to
the surface of the skin. If we're painting from
a reference though, we don't necessarily have to think about this
because we can get this information by looking at and studying our reference. But just like with the
basics of color theory, even if you're not consciously
thinking about it, it's a good idea to just keep this information
safe in the back of your head somewhere because you never know when
you're going to need it. One more thing to
consider when mixing your skin tones is that
you want both highlights, mid-tones and shadow cause. Generally speaking,
highlights are going to be warm and shadows are
going to be cool. But again, it
sometimes depends on the environment
or other factors. However, if we're
just sticking to that general rule of
thumb for a second, what this means for
your color mixes is that for areas where the
skin is hit by light, you can usually
have some of these more saturated and bright cause, and for the shadow
areas you want to neutralize your
cause some more. [MUSIC] Even though these
skin tones were not made with this
reference in mind, let's just grab it
and see if we can find some decent color matches. With the baby who's
representing the pale skin, we are not too far off with
these pale tones on the left. Now we do need some more
pinkish or rosy undertones, but it's a pretty good match. If we then move to the right, we actually have some
pretty good matches for the woman and the
elderly man as well. They will need some tweaking, but again, we're
not too far off. Even though we do
need to build up layers to get the
full saturation, we can see that we
are able to both get those golden and deep
purple-brown shades. [MUSIC]
5. DIY Color Viewer: [MUSIC] We're going to make a color
finder or a color viewer. It might have a fancier
name than that, and I'm sure you can
buy versions of it, but there's really no need to. It may very well be the most simple tool
you'll ever make, but it's incredibly useful. Let's say you want to paint a realistic portrait and you
have your reference ready. Next step is mixing
the colors and even though you can
see the colors by looking at your
reference pictures, it can still be difficult
to see the exact color. The reason for this is
because you're seeing them in relation to the
color surrounding them, so you want to be
able to isolate each color and what
do you need for this is a piece of paper. Since we are working
with watercolor, which is a transparent medium, I recommend using a piece
of watercolor paper. Then, all you have to do is cut a small window
into your paper, it doesn't have to be a square, it could be a circle, a star, heart-shaped,
get creative, it's up to you, what
you want to cut at all in this piece of paper. That's it. Now what you have is a tool that when you put it on top of
your reference picture, you're able to see
the exact color in that area compared to the color
of your watercolor paper. This makes it so
much easier to focus on just that one color
you want to mix. It also makes it so much
easier to see the exact value, so how light or how dark you want to go compared
to your paper. If you have a hard time mixing the right colors or
the right value, try making one of these.
6. Mixing Different Skintones: [MUSIC] We're going to go
through some skin tone mixes for each of
these references and we're also going
to get started on the project for this class. Just going from left to right, starting with the baby
or the pale skin. Now with the basics
skin tone makes the problem was that it
wasn't quite pink enough. There are a lot of
pink going on here, so I'm going to switch
out the red with a pink. I'm going to pick magenta. This is a nice cool pink
and one of my favorite. You're going to see
this a few times. Next, we want the yellow from our color wheel,
all primary colors. I don't really see a
whole lot of yellow but I do see some warm oranges, so I'm going to switch out
the yellow with an orange. I'm going for chrome orange hue, which is a more red orange
so it's on the cooler side, then for around the eye
where the skin is thinner, I am seeing some bluish
or lilacy tones. For this, I'm going
for more of the purple and I'm going to go
for quinacridone purple. The more you make skin tones
or mix colors in general, the more that is going
to become second nature. This is just one out of many ways you could
make this skin tone. Have a play with the colors in your pallet and see what
you can come up with. If you are using different
color mixes than I am, I'd love for you to share them. For each of these skin tones, I'm just going to
do some swatching down here at the bottom just to see if I am indeed happy with the
colors I've chosen. With this palette, you can
see that you can go from those pale golds and gross tones to some
more lilacy shades, all the way down to some
deep brown mixes that if you are using them in
a more concentrated form, would work perfectly
for that line going around the face
down near the chest. Once you have a color
palette you like, go ahead and add the
colors to your circle. You can make them flow together in any which way you want. I'll keep them separate. It doesn't have to be neat. Only want for this side of the circle is to be
able to differentiate between the colors you used and see them in their
more pure form. [MUSIC] Next up we have a more
neutral or olive skin tones. I am still seeing a lot of those same pinks that
I'm seeing in the baby. I'm going to stick
with the magenta. For this one because there is so much olive going through, I wanted to be able to
mix a proper green. I'm going for more of a
classic yellow and blue. For my yellow, I'm going
with quinacridone gold, which is just a beautiful
deep golden color. If you don't have
this in your palette, the brand doesn't matter, I definitely
recommend getting it. For our blue, I'm going
back to our good friend, wants to talk to everyone
ultramarine finest. Because of quinacridone gold is not a pure yellow but more, I don't want to call it dirty
but a deeper golden tone, it's really good for mixing
the small olive shades. Even if you're not
mixing olive skin, quinacridone gold is
just such a good color for so many different
skin tones. We're just going to
check that we can get the shades we need
so anything from that rosy cheek to some golden and olive neat tones down to that darker
olive shadow color. [MUSIC] For the third skin tone mix we could definitely
get away with using the same color combo we've just used for the second skin tone. But that's no fun, especially when we have a chance to try out some more calm mixes. I feel bad for bashing the
cadmium red previously, so we're going to
prove that it can indeed play nicely with the other kids and so we're going to go back in
with its good friend, ultramarine finest from before, and also some chromium
yellow deep hue. This palette is not
going to give us those same pink tones but we are still able to
get the red cheeks, some beautiful olive, and tan mid-tones, and some deep browns for the shading or shadow
areas if we need it. [MUSIC] For the deepest skin tones, I'm going to look for some darker and richer
colors on my palette. For the fourth skin tone, I still want to be able to get some really nice
rich golden tone so I'm going for transparent
or translucent orange. I'm also seeing a
lot of neutral tones so only though this
is a very red orange, just still want something to
go up against the yellow, so I'm going for
quinacridone purple and then ultramarine
finest as well. This palette will
allow us to both get some of those really nice golden but also some of the
very muted on neutral browns. One thing to note
with the cadmium red is that it's a
more opaque paint. Now, generally for
something like this, I would recommend sticking to more transparent colors because transparent colors
are generally better for layering or glazing. However, you can use more opaque paints for
mixing skin tones as well. Just try and stay away from any colors that contain white. You can use white
in your skin mixes but other than the fact that it's going to
cool your colors, it can also very easily make your paintings look
more dark and muted. That's because what
gives watercolor this luminous quality
is the fact that it's transparent so it
lets light shine through and so by
using opaque paint, you're no longer
letting that light in. For the final skin tone, I am seeing more difference
between my monitor and my printout but I'm going for the colors I
see on my printout. I'm seeing some golden tones in the cheeks but I'm also
seeing a lot of purple, especially up near
the forehead where the sky is reflecting
onto the skin. Compared to the
previous skin tone, I'm going for a
more cool palette. Keeping in mind what we talked about in the lesson
with the color theory, in order to get
some nice purples, we're going to need
pink so I'm going in with quinacridone magenta, which is a slightly
more purple-pink than the other magenta. I'm using delft blue, which is a really
nice deep blue color and then I still want to
be able to get some of those golden tones
but not as vibrant, so I'm going in with
transparent ocher. Another type or category of watercolor paint that you
probably want to stay away from if mixing skin tones
is granulating paints. These are the paints that
are going to give you these unpredictable
patterns or textures. They're great for so many things like landscapes or backgrounds but imagine trying to paint a beautiful realistic
portrait of a baby. You don't want unpredictable
texture on that skin. Granulating paints are
banned from my palette, so I don't even have
any to show you. The ones I do have
don't even granulate enough for you to really
be able to see it. But again, I just
don't really recommend using these for your
skin tone mixes. [MUSIC] Once you have a nice
array of skin tones, take your watercolor
paper and hold it up against the lightbox
or a window and then use your pencil to just roughly
draw those same circles on the backside to get
ready for the next lesson.
7. Skintone Colorwheels & Class Project: [MUSIC] After drawing the
circles on the back, I used pencil to just roughly
mark the center of each. You don't have to do this, but I do find that it's nice
to have a starting point. For each of the circles grab the colors that match
the other side, and then all you want
to do is just mix a variety of skin
tones are cause for each and what I then left with are customized
skin tone color wheels. These are great way to just
quickly get an overview of different paints
you can use to achieve different skin tones. If you're going to
an art supply store and you're shopping for colors, you can even bring them with you to help pick out new colors. The project for this
class is to make at least three of these
color wheels: one for light, one for medium, and
one for dark skin. I know that there are so many different shades and nuances within each of the
skin tone categories, but the goal is to get better at understanding how
to make skin tones. For this class, we're
going to say that one of each is going to suffice. You can go from pink to golden tones or
from light to dark, from very vibrant and colorful to more muted
and neutral colors; anything that helps
tell you what you could use each of these
color palettes for. The larger you've
made your circles, the more room you have to
play around with all of these different variables
and color mixes. You can make this
as aesthetically pleasing or at once
looking as you want. Personally, I like keeping
stuff like this simple and maybe even a bit messy just so I don't feel
as precious about it. You'll be able to see
that for my first circle; so that is the one
for light skin, I'm keeping everything
fairly light or pale. Even though that doesn't show the full potential
of the palette, it's enough for me to get a clue of what the palate was
originally made for. The same with the mid tones, I'm keeping those darker
than my original swatches. For the two with the
deepest skin tones, I'm making them darker but
not as dark as they could be. The only thing
that's important is that each of these is able to tell you what each color
palette is capable of. I'm really not trying
to make it look pretty, I go in any particularly
logical order. I'm just having some fun
mixing different shades. If you're making them
a small as mine, you don't have to mix as much paint in your
palette as I did. I definitely or did it. Once you're done you
want to cut them out. The reason why we
didn't do this at the beginning is to both make it easier to paint on paper
without them moving around, but also to help
keep the paper flat. Then the last thing
you want to do is just take your pencil, or a marker, or pen whenever;
you want to use, and just write the color
name on each of the colors. If you're making them using
multiple different brands, I recommend writing the
name of the brand as well. [MUSIC]
8. Color study: [MUSIC] We will be going
more in depth with the painting process
in upcoming classes, but I like finishing
these with a small study. If you want to join me for
doing a small class study, I have attached my
sketch of a couple of babies as well as the reference
pictures to this class. You can find those in the
projects and resources tab. This is a great way to just play around and try out the color
wheels we just created. I highly encourage
you to give it a go. You don't have to worry about
the details or lightness, it's just a way to practice
using these colors. In regards to the
sketches and the study, if you're interested in seeing my approach to sketching
for a portrait, checkout my portrait
sketching class. If you haven't seen the
first class in the series, I go through some basic watercolor techniques
as well as how to apply those for shading
facial features. Because this class is focused
on the color mixing aspect, I won't go into detail with
the techniques I'm using, but I will talk about some
of the painting process. The first thing I did was
just apply a pale wash to the entire sketch
just to get a sense of the colors going
on in the photo. At this point, I just
painted the skin using a mix of the purple and
orange because as we know, purple and yellow are
opposites on the color wheel. The yellow from the
orange is going to be neutralized by
the purple tones, making it a bit more suitable for being used as a skin tone. I then started
working on some of the shadows or darker
colors in the photo. I used that same skin
mix that I used before, but I mixed in some more purple and added
some pink as well. We want the shadows
to be more cool. [MUSIC] The brush I'm using is not suitable for
adding any detail really. I have completely destroyed this brush by stippling
and scrapping, but I still love it. It really doesn't
matter because detail, as I said, is not going to
be our focus for this study. [MUSIC] At this point, I added some color to the lips. For this area I'm using
a lot more pink tones. Though, I am also
outlining and adding detail and depth or not detail, but just know a bit
more detail using that same mix of basically all the colors for
some more brownish tones. [MUSIC] Other than for the lips, I'm keeping most of the
pinks for the forehead, the cheeks, and around the nose. You'll see me go in with a very watered-down pink
shade on the entire face. Then as the painting
is progressing, I'm adding more layers. If you want to tone
down that pink, you just want to add onto it with some of the other colors. We don't have blue and
yellow to make the green, which is the opposite of red and therefore
close to the pink. But we know that a watered-down orange is
basically a pale skin tone. By adding some of the
orange back into that pink, it's going to look
more like skin. For the shadow areas, keep it more in
the purple tones. [MUSIC] Now, this color palette was made for a different
reference photo, and it was really meant to
paint woolly hats or blankets. When using these color palette, you may need to make some
adjustments or add in a couple of other colors in order to get the
result you want. For the majority of this one, I am just using the
colors I have from this color palette
because that in and of itself is
really good practice. Giving yourself these
limitations means that you have to work more
creatively to make it work. It also shows how versatile
these palettes can be. This particular palette
doesn't have a blue, which would enable us to make a green and just more
shades over all. We are somewhat limited to
a certain color scheme. But sometimes that
can be a lot of fun. Currently, the footage
you're seeing is sped up by three times the normal speed
but at this point or stage, I'm really just going
back and forth, adding more depth by
adding more layers. I'm going to speed
up the rest of the footage just a bit more. [MUSIC] If you're wondering why both of the references for this class or the
studies are of babies, well, it's really very simple, babies tend to have
the least amount of distractions or details
that you have to worry about. There's really not a lot
of fine lines or wrinkles. You don't often see babies with mustaches or
bushy eyebrows. It's also super easy to find pictures of babies
with their eyes shut. All we need to focus
on is the skin. [MUSIC] You can stop at any point you want. You just want to get
some of those contrasts and colors down on your paper. [MUSIC] If you make
these studies, you can also save these together with the color palettes or the color wheels to just be another example of what the
palette can be used for. [MUSIC] Because the palette
we're working with is very pink and soft, I wanted to bring in some more neutral tones
to help us get some of the colors that we
can't really get because we don't
have a blue shade. A couple of good
neutrals to have in cases like this where you don't really want to bring
in more colors, but just want to get
some of those, well, neutrals in Payne's
gray and neutral tint. Now, the neutral tint
from Schmincke is a bit different from most of the
neutral tints I've seen. Usually they're a bit
more blue in tone or hue, whereas this is one
is a bit more purple. For this painting to get in some of those more blue tones, I chose the Payne's gray. Adding a tiny bit of this is really going to help
pull back some of those brighter oranges and also just add some more
depth and contrast. Then at the very
end, just to help speed up the process a bit more, I went in with the pencil and just added a
tiny bit of shading, added some more
contrast to a couple of the lines because I don't
have a detailed brush, just very minor adjustments. [MUSIC] I really hope you're going
to have some fun mixing different skin tones and please do show me what
you come up with.
Tanja Jensen, Artist - Sculpting, drawing and painting
