Watercolor Skin Tone Recipes: Color Mixing with a Limited Palette

1. What You'll Learn: One thing I learned about color mixing is that you cannot rely solely on intuition and combine just any pigments in the hope of achieving the skin tone you need. I used to purchase multiple pigments just to find the perfect shade that fits my reference photo. As a result, I have accumulated lots of palettes and I'm often hindered from painting something I want just because a color is missing or so I thought. Then one day it dawned on me that what I'm lacking, is it a couple more tubes of paint, but a skill that I should have learned years ago, mixing my own colors. Welcome to this class. I'm Bianca Lustre, an aspiring watercolor artist from Btanga Philippines. I've been working with this medium since 2018, and some of my works have been recognized both locally and internationally through invitational competitions and juried exhibits. Mont Mart has also featured me on their website. In this class, let's discover different skin tone recipes using one, two, three, and four color combinations while discussing basic color theories. To apply these concepts, we will do swatches, paint the planes of the head and a simple portrait. I know this might sound intimidating, but don't worry. I will provide you with tools to make the drawing part easier and a lot more fun so that we can focus on color mixing more. I will also discuss some tips on how to choose your alternative colors, S shadow shapes better, and which colors don't work and lots more. As a bonus, I will also share different methods in drawing portraits without using a grid. By the end of this class, you'll have the confidence in choosing your pigments to mix for your own art projects, requiring you to mix flesh tone shades. This class is designed for any level. Everyone is welcome to join in the fun. In fact, I have also prepared a gift for anyone who loves color mixing. A e book containing swatches of over 100 color combinations that you can use as a reference in mixing skin tones. Find out how to get your copy in the next video. 2. A Gift for You: Our focus in this class is to learn how to mix our colors effectively to achieve different skin tone shades. But that being said, you have various options to share. As a class project, you can applaud a swatch, the planes of the head, or if you want more challenge a simple portrait. We'll also explore different color combinations for the skin tone, Working with one color, two colors, 3.4 with each recipe. A simple color theory is explained on why they work, along with exercises to see if this color combination will work on our own art style or painting subject. Since our main goal is to mix colors, I will provide tools to make it easier for you, since I know that painting portraits can be intimidating. Also, I have prepared a gift for those who want to learn more. An ebook containing over 100 color combinations and skin tone swatches I made for the past few months to see which colors work together and which you can get a copy by either uploading a class project or reviewing this class, and then sending me an e mail with the subject skin tone book. I spent hours and hours creating these watches, and I wanted to give it to anyone who also loves color mixing this much. With that being said, please prepare your watercolor materials, including paints, brushes, and paper. Download the class guide and check out the complete least and reference photos. And I'll see you in the next video. 3. 1-Color Recipe: Let's start with the easiest recipe where technically only one color is required. In the succeeding videos, we will swatch, paint the planes of the head. And for those who want to go extra, a simple portrait exercise awaits. Please prepare any of these colors or anything brownish along with the demos. I will share tips on why you need to swat, share lights and darks to create a three D form. How to easily transfer the drawing so we can focus on color mixing and how to see shadow shapes. Better to get started, please find these pages in your class guide which you can print and use as a reference photo see in the next video. 4. Swatch with 1 Color: Monochromatic color. Skin is based on a single color and uses variation of that color by changing the saturation and brightness of the base color. Black and white are commonly added as they are the darkest and lightest shades of a color. With water colors, we usually use water instead of white pigment to mix a lighter version of that color. With that being said, you could paint a portrait using one color only, or what's known as a monochromatic painting. Here are some examples of monochromatic portrait paintings where a single pigment is used as the base color. Don't worry, we won't be painting these. They're just samples. But when it comes to skin tone, what color do we use as the base color? Generally speaking, the color of the skin is orange. The vibrancy, lightness, or darkness depends on the skin type of a person. Looking at this color wheel by Bruce Mcevoy. I also discussed this in my previous class. By the way, let's look at the colors between red and yellow. Where the orange pigments lie. If we move closer to the center, the more neutral the colors become. There you'll find pigments that could work in a monochromatic portrait painting, such as burnt sienna, burnt umber, Venetian red, and raw umber. Let's try and swatch the two most common colors, burnt sienna and burnt umber, which aren't purely orange, but more of a brownish orange. Let's start with burnt sienna. I have divided a seven by ten paper in three to test out three colors. At the top are two spheres, and I'll explain their purpose in a while. I'll be getting my colors from this palette. As I mentioned earlier, I have acquired multiple palettes containing different pigments from various brands. And it felt so organized that I started learning color mixing and working with a limited palette. To start off, you want to mix a base color, about 50% water and 50% pigment. Or until you achieve this consistency, then paint a horizontal swatch this big. Leave some space for four more horizontal swatches. Once you're done, rinse your brush and dry it on a paper towel or rag. Then lift up some paint at the end of your swatch. This will give you two shades. Next, add more water to your mixture for an even lighter shade. And do the same as we did with the first Swatch. When we talk about portraits, the face is not flat. It has a form. Therefore, highlights and shadow colors should also be considered to show that I drew circles here where we'll use different shades of color. I find that the second shade that we swatch works perfectly well as the base color of the sphere. I'll paint that in now. Add more water for the third swatch that is an even lighter shade. This shows you that water should be treated as a color too, not just for rinsing your brush. Now, for comparison purposes instead of water, let's use white to lighten the base color. You'll see that it became more opaque, and compared to the two shades above it, it has also become duller. But it can also work as a base color. Let's use that on the second sphere. Don't forget to leave a small circle that will serve as the highlight. Let us imagine the light coming from the upper right. So the shadows should lie on the lower left. Now for the final swatch, let's use black to darken the color. I used to avoid black before because someone told me that blacks create a hole in your painting. Little did I know that it works perfectly fine when you use it in color mixing instead. Now that our Swatch is done, let's finish off the spheres by adding shadows, using the darker shades of the color. You can work on this wet and wet, or wet and dry as I am doing now, don't forget to soften the edges for a more believable look. For the first sphere, I will use burnt sienna, only to darken it, while on the second one I added a bit of black to differentiate it from the former. Oh, and don't forget to label your swatches, as it will get really confusing when you have lots of swatches later now getting darker with the first sphere that's purely burnt sienna. And to make it darker, I made sure to use less water and more paint to get a stronger mixture for the second sphere. I added more black for the darkest part. What do we have here? A swatch of burnt sienna starting with the neutral mix, then added more water. Even more water. We mixed white to the base mixture and then black. See the difference? The left one is obviously leaning towards orange, while the right one is more of a neutral brown. As an alternative, I also swatch light red, which is close to bird sienna. Light red looks a bit redder than the former. In the swatches, I used a different order. The top is a neutral mix. And then more water was added, then black was added. Finally, white is mixed for the last swatch. Now let's try this on burnt umber. Considering that some of you might have this color, I will do the same as I had done with burnt sienna. I am spitting up this demo a bit because I trust that you know how we're creating these watches and the spheres. Starting off with a neutral mix of about 2.5 water and pigment. Don't forget to live for a lighter shade. Okay. And then added more water for a lighter version. Even more water for the lightest version now mixing white to get another lighter shade and black for a darker version. For the sphere on the left, alus, different shades of burnt umber. And on the sphere on the right, alus different shade mixed with white and black for comparison. No pressure on painting these spheres perfectly. Okay. The purpose of these watches is to give us lots of opportunities to practice color mixing, not painting a perfect sphere. If you accidentally painted outside the lines, use your paper towel immediately to lift up the colors or just let go. Now here's our burnt umber swatch. It's a bit more neutral compared to burnt sienna as a substitute. If you have CPA, you can try that too. Looking at them side by side, we'll give you an idea how close or far off these pigments are from each other. Here are other alternatives. Raw Umber and Vinitian Red were also near the center of the color wheel. I swatch them too. I think they could work depending on the skin type of the person you're painting. I'll discuss more of that later. Another pigment that I tried is John Brilliant, which doesn't look that much of a skin color. But perhaps this would be applicable to a different skin type, or a cartoon style painting, or even a fan art of anime characters. In fact, when I was a beginner, I had the impression that John Brilliant is the ultimate skin color and that I won't need anything else. But it was nowhere near the skin tone that I was looking for. Since I'm from the Philippines, most of the people here have medium skin tone that won't work if I want to paint a portrait of a family or a friend. I even tried adding black to darken it a bit, but the color looks dull for me. Anyways. As I mentioned, this color can still work with other skin types or painting styles. I also tried brown red, which is quite similar to Venetian red. And out of curiosity, Naples yellow, which I think is a bit too yellow. What colors will you be trying? Let me know in the discussion staff. All in all, here are my top picks for a monochromatic portrait painting. Burnt sienna, light red, burnt umber, brown, red, and raw umber. But these are just my personal choices. Let me know which colors work best for you for a single color portrait painting. A quick recap, We talked about what a monochromatic color skim is, where a single color is used as the base color, and white or black is added to achieve different shades with water colors. Water can be used as a substitute to white Swatch. Single pigments, burnt sienna, burnt umber. And for fun, John brilliant. Along with the Swatch, we painted a simple sphere to see how it would look in a portrait and create a three D effect. We also discussed different alternative colors. In the next video, let's get into action by painting the planes of the head in a monochromatic color scheme. 5. Planes with 1 Color: It's time to use a monochromatic scheme and put a little more challenge by painting the planes of the head. We'll do something like this. But first, I'd like to credit and recommend William's female head a light reference to. This is what we'll use as a reference image for this exercise. I've included the link to this tool in the class guide. Please download that if you haven't already. When you scroll down, you'll find images of the female head in different angles that you can already work with. But if you want to play with this tool, then press the play button. Rotate. Pause once you find the lighting that you like. This angle works for me, that lighting is perfect. I'll take a screenshot and say that as an image. Now, here's a quick way to transfer your drawing. We can focus more on color mixing rather than on perfecting the drawing of the plates of the head. I have here a graphite transfer paper. I'm testing it out to show you which side is down, then I'll lay the printed reference photo and tape them down on my paper. The next step is pretty straightforward. I grabbed a different colored pen just so it's easier to see which parts are already done. I go over the lines and from time to time, check if I've applied the right pressure. Do this until you cover the whole head. But feel free to draw it by free hand or use another three D model showing the planes of the head. For this exercise, the process will look like this. We swatched burnt sienna and burnt umber earlier this time I'll use light red plus ivory black. For this exercise, I'll start with a water mixture of light red and use that to cover the whole area. If you have another color in mind, then please feel free to use that. Also, please take note that the size of the brush is relevant to the size of the drawing. If you're planning to scale this down, then you can grab a smaller brush once you painted the whole head, rinse your brush pad it dry, and lift up some paint where the highlights are located. But this is an optional step, so don't worry too much about this. Now, leave this to dry and we'll continue for the second layer. I'll add more paint, mix a bit of black to desaturate the color. And as always, try it out on scratch paper to see if you've got the shade that you want. Then I'll cover these areas and avoid these two tiny spots at the top and bottom of the eye to our right. Don't fuss too much about this. Okay. If you painted outside the line, that's totally fine. Let's focus on mixing the skin tone shades that we want to work with. For the cheek, I love to soften that edge, let this dry completely, and let's mix the last shade that we'll need. This time, I added more black to the mixture. To achieve this color, I will cover these areas. You can actually just cover the whole left side of the face if you prefer to, but I like leaving some highlights for the eye and the cheek. You'll also notice that I now switch to a smaller synthetic brush for better coverage of the smaller shapes. By this time, I hope that you can appreciate that just by using different shades of light, red and black, letting each layer dry in between the applications, we can already see how a monochromatic color scheme will work on an actual portrait. Here's another class project option for you. I've also tried this on a smaller version with burnt sienna. Burnt umber plus black, and John brilliant plus black. Which one do you like best? A quick recap. I shared a free resource that you can use as a reference for the planes of the head. Then we transferred the drawing with the graphite transfer paper. We used light red and black, this time to paint the different planes of the head. Finally, showed you other color options that you can try in the next video. Let's up our game a little more by working on a simple portrait. 6. Portrait with 1 Color: Painting, portraits can be intimidating. But I reckon it will be more satisfying if we applied what we have learned by creating something like this painting. This as is would be scary. Here's a little trick that could help us see shadow shapes better and would give us a reference that's easier to use. I've loaded the image into Photoshop and made sure to unlock the background layer by double clicking over here. Then you want to go to Image Adjustments Posturize. You'll see the image turn into something like this. By default, the level is set into four. When you drag the slider to the right, the image will be smoother, but the shadow shapes will be harder to distinguish. Level two works fine, but some of the details on her hair are lost completely in black. For this image, I like to keep it at level four. You can then save this print and transfer using the same method I shared earlier when we were doing the planes of the head. The process will look something like this will be done in four layers. Okay, I have prepared my drawing here and this time I'll be using burnt umber plus ivory black, starting with a very watery mixture of burnt umber. Make sure to have your sketch paper ready for swatching and checking if you get the shade you need. Looking at the reference photo we edited earlier, I will be leaving this part of the forehead chick, upper lip and chin white. This technique is called negative painting. It could be challenging for absolute beginners, but I'd like to encourage you to give it a try. Apart from those areas, I will paint the whole head with this mixture. Once that's covered, leave this to dry completely. Next, I'll add more paint to the mixture and make it thicker and darker swatch to check and proceed. This time I will be covering these areas. I will be leaving some areas on her head or loose hair that will serve as highlights. Okay, no need to fuss over which strand of hair should be left out. Just leave a couple untouched by this mixture, and that should work if needed. You can also switch to a smaller brush to help you navigate easily through the narrower shadow shapes like those on her nose and lips. As always, leave this layer to dry or use a blow dryer to speed up the process before adding the next wine. For the third layer, I will be adding black to the mixture and of course, more paint. I also decided that this is the right time to grab a smaller round brush. Here are the areas that we will be working on. It's a personal decision to darken those areas. On her eyes, nose, and lips. You can do the same, but you'll want the hair mostly covered and the farther side of the face. I am doing something different here though, since I want a soft edge for this shadow. I prepare that area by painting the line dividing the shadow shape with clean water. That way when I drop the paint on the paper, it will blend with the water, creating a softer edge. This to dry and we're ready for the final touch. Well, you guessed it. More burnt, umber and black. For the details. This scratch paper is looking nice too, don't you think? At least this color for her nostril eyelashes and some distinct hair strands. Don't forget the ear hole and this part of the head. We're nearly done, and I am so proud of you. Here's another option for a class project, since I'm currently obsessed to color mixing. I also painted smaller versions with these colors. Burnt umber, burnt sienna plus black, and venetian red plus black, which appeals to you the most. Here are some samples of loose monochromatic color paintings. I'm planning to launch a class on loose porchits. Please stay tuned. A quick recap. We discussed how to edit the photos to see shadow shapes easily, then used burnt umber plus black for the simple portrait painting. And applied what we have learned with a monochromatic color scheme. I also showed you some alternative colors that you can work with. In the next video, it's time to use two colors where the other one isn't black. 7. 2-Color Recipe: It's now time to add another color in our skin tone recipe. Just like how we did our monochromatic painting. We will swatch work on the planes of the head and a simple portrait, but the demos will be sped up since we are painting the same subject. To get started, please prepare these colors, a red and green, an orange and blue and a violet and yellow. These are the specific pigment names that I will be working with. Make sure to watch the whole lesson, since I will sprinkle some tips like which colors don't work, for mixing flesh tone. How to darken each layer to create depth in a simple way to release pressure when painting portraits. Let's get started in the next video. 8. Swatch with 2 Colors: Pink and green for the skin. That's my first reaction when I saw a demo by an artist I admire when he picked up those colors to mix the skin tones. Then he explained the theory of complimentary colors. Complimentary colors, ones that lie opposite each other on the color wheel, appear bright and vibrant when placed together. But when mixed together, they produce different shades of browns and grays. If you use the right pigments, you can also successfully mix a brownish orange for the color of the skin. I discussed more of this in my previous color mixing class. If you haven't already, please check that out. Anyways, let's try different combinations and see if there are good candidates for a skin tone recipe. First up is orange and blue. Here I have cadmium orange and cobalt blue. They are both neutral versions. Meaning the orange is neither yellow, orange, nor red orange. And the blue is neither blue, violet nor blue green. Let's see how this combination looks on the first watch, try to get a mixture that is as close to brown as possible, not too much orange or blue. Then add more orange to the mixture for the second Swatch. Don't forget to lift some colors to get the lighter shade. This gives you an idea that the amount of pigment matters in color mixing. It also gives us clues on which colors are overpowering or weak. The color produced is a bit grayish, but we can still use it for the darker features of the face, like the eyes, shadows or hair. Now mix again and add more water for an even lighter version of the neutral swatch. Keep adjusting if you need to and be patient. You'll get the shade that you want. As always, paint the sphere with different shades of the base mixture. This time, I am working on this wet on wet, making sure that there's more paint than water. With each layer you add. This instantly gives soft edges and speeds up the process. Why didn't I do this earlier? Here's how our orange and blue swatch looks. Of course, I tried other combinations like cadmium orange and thalo blue, red shade. You'll see that the mixture turned gray when I added more blue cadmium orange and turquoise blue, which is a bit similar to the first one. Vermilion hue is also considered an orange. I mix that with the same blue pigments mentioned earlier. Here you might have noticed that vermilion hue and thalo blue look better together. Now out of curiosity, I also substituted orange with browns or brownish orange. Burnt sienna combined with same blues from earlier looked duller compared with our monochromatic swatch. While burnt sienna light paired with ultramarine blue and Prussian blue seems a bit livelier. But if we look closely at the Swatch where more ultramarine blue is added to the mixture, the granulation shows this could be a good or bad effect for a portrait, depending on the style that you are after. All in all, here are my top picks for blue and orange combination. Cadmium orange, and cobalt blue. The same orange with thalo blue, vermilion hue, and thalo blue. And burn siena light and Prussian blue. Let me know what colors you are trying next. Red and green. This is spiral red and sap green. Same approach as earlier. Mix a neutral one for the first watch. Add more red for the second one. More green on the third one, and more water on the neutral mix. I must confess sap green was the last green. I tried to pair with red because I don't like that color. To my surprise, this is the best green I have mixed with my reds. I'll show you other combinations I tried later. Let's start swatching. That skin tone is more vibrant than the orange and blue combination, don't you think? Rinse and dry up your brush to lift the right part of the Swatch. Color mixing and experimenting different combinations isn't just about learning which colors work well together, It's also a way to discover which colors don't work. Like the third swatch, a little bit more green in that mixture and it might look weird. This is skin tone to some. If I could turn back time, I would have studied this skill as soon as I started working with watercolors and filled up lots of sketchbooks with color mixing experiments. But I'm still glad that I am here learning how to mix colors together with you. Okay? Don't forget to color in the circle. That would give us an idea how the shades will look on an actual portrait. I switched to a smaller brush for easier control and added more paint. When I reached the lower left side where the shadow lies, here's our piral red and green swatch. Now presenting the different red and green combinations, I experimented with cadmium red and vermilion hue mixed with sap Green. Vermilion hue is a reddish orange. It can work as either red or orange. For these color mixing exercises, I also tried vermilion hue and Hookers green and pyal red together with rate rate is another color that I used to ignore and I'm glad that I gave it a second chance to redeem itself. I have also some failed experiments or combinations that are not to my liking. Here we have viral red and permanent green, Scarlet, lake, and Hooker's green, which look a bit to forest. If I may say the lightest and darkest shades might work, but personally they look a bit d cadmium red mixed with either Viridian hue or Hooker's green aren't also to my liking. Maybe you can make these colors work, but for me, they are a bit challenging to use with water colors. We can also substitute pink or magenta with red. Here are some lovely combinations. I have experimented with both rose matter and Quinacrodone. Red mixed with sap green created a beautiful skin tone color. We even have colors here that could work as a blush. Quinacridone magenta and Quinacridone rose mixed with the same green also look great together as a skin tone shade. Just be careful not to add too much green. All in all my topics are these colors mixed with sap, green, pyal, red, scarlet, Lake Rose, Matter, and Quinacridone bread. Of course, there are lots of colors I haven't tested here. Please do. Let me know in the discussions or comments which pigments you suggest I try next. Next up is violet and yellow. This must have been the most challenging complementaries I have experimented with. Let's try Gumbo, Chinova and Quinacridone Lilac. Same approach. Start with a neutral mix, add more yellow, add more violet, and add more water to the neutral mix. If needed, prepare scratch paper where you can test the color first before painting a swatch. If you're working with different colors, don't pressure yourself to get the same mixture I'm showing you, it's normal to get the different shade than what I'm showing here, even if we're using the same colors, but from different brands, you will also get a different result. Most of the pigments I use here are from Hole Ne and this Quinacridone Lila is from White nights. Keep experimenting and enjoy the process. I think I didn't get a dark enough mixture for the darkest shadow. But that's fine. Later when we do our simple portrait using complimentary colors, you learn how to make use of these shades for the features of the face to be noticeable. Even if we mix a purplish skin tone instead of a dark one, it's really just a matter of layering and letting water colors do its work. Here's our gumbo ch nova and quinacdone lilacs. Watch other yellows I tried with Quinacrodone. Lilac are yellow, ochre, cadmium yellow, light lemon yellow, and olin. All of these look great. And of course, sharing my failed experiments, the ones that I don't really like, Gumbo Chinova and Quinacerdone gold mixed with carbazol violet are too dull for me. But perhaps they can work great on other styles or skin tone hands. A yellow light with the same violet and look at this gumbo ch nova with lavender. Both mixtures ended up with a greenish tone. And my guess would be the violets have more blue pigments mixed on them. When combined with yellow, naturally they turn green. But compared to Quinacridone lilac, which is leaning towards pink, it works so well with yellow pigments. For my top picks for yellow and violet combination, are these yellows combined with Quinacridone lilac, yellow ochre, Olin gambo, Chinova, and cadmium yellow light. What about you? What's your favorite? A quick recap. We learned about complimentary colors that lie opposite each other on the color wheel and swatch them. We tried orange and blue, red and green and yellow and violet combinations. I also share different alternatives and even my failed experiments. In the next video, let's put this into action by painting the planes of the head using complimentary colors. 9. Planes with 2 Colors: Another plane of the head study. This will be quick since you've already seen me do it once. This time I'll use Scarlet Lake and Sap Green as always. Don't forget to swatch and, and adjust the mixture if needed, cover the whole head for the first layer with a varying watery mixture of the complementaries. I want you to pay close attention to how I adjust my colors rather than on how I paint the planes as that's what matters most in this color mixing class. Leave the first layer to dry and let's work on these shapes. I'll use whatever's left on my palette and when I test it, you'll see that it isn't obviously darker than the first color. But since water colors are transparent, when I add another layer of the same color, it will still be darker. Take note of that when you're doing your portraits. Using the same color at the top of another layer will work when you're doing the shadows. That's the traditional approach with water colors working from light to dark. Let this layer dry, I minute, leave it to dry completely. Do something else, or watch this video, or pause and do yours before working on the final layer. Also, did you catch me grabbing my scarlet leg from yet another palette? Yes, those multiple palettes are a pain to my eyes in a sense. This can also work as a monochromatic color painting, right? We're only using a brownish orange as the base color and varying the amount of water on the mixture to achieve different shades. But for clarity of this class, I named this video planes with two colors where complimentary colors are at work. Anyways, I added more paint to make the colors bolder. And use a paper towel to lift up some paint that got on the left eye, or technically the eye to or left. Here's our complimentary colored planes of the head. Other colors that I tried on smaller studies are cadmium orange and cobalt blue, Scarlet, lake, and permanent green and yellow ochre with carbazol violet. This set features burnt sienna and prussian blue, pyal red and sap green. And Gambo Chinova with Quinacridone. Lilac, Which one's your favorite? A quick recap. We used complimentary colors on the planes of the head and also learned that layering darkens the color. I've shared alternative colors you can work with. In the next video, I'll work on a simple portrait again. And I'll share what I do to release some pressure in painting intimidating subjects like a portrait. 10. Portrait with 2 Colors: Okay, I know it might look intimidating, but I got to tell you that if you do this simple portrait exercise, it will be so rewarding no matter if you share this project or not. But I do encourage you to upload it as it motivates me and your fellow students to work on their projects too. Okay, here I am using yellow ochre and quinacridone lilac and I will be covering these areas. If you find that negative painting, those small shapes is too much to handle, then just paint the whole head. Let it dry before painting the second layer. Use white water color or gas paint to paint those tiny highlights for the next layer, paint these areas. Here's your reminder not to stress too much on copying the reference photo, as we are not painting a realistic portrait, but studying how to mix the colors effectively to achieve believable skin toes. I don't even worry if my pencil marks show when the painting is done, it's all part of the artwork. Now remember that we are just studying and doing these exercises to get better. We're not here to create masterpieces yet. Let dry and work on the third layer where we will soften the edges by pre wetting the side of the face before dropping our colors. Another very helpful tip that I tell my students during face to face workshops is to treat each painting exercise as a practice session only. And not to see their paper or paint like treasures or some precious material. Your experience is more valuable than the price of your art materials. Okay, I even ask them to write scratch paper at the top of their watercolor papers, even if they're using 100% cotton wine to release some pressure to make something perfect. If you think that this will work for you too, then please do that. Even I remind myself that this is just a scratch paper. Every time I am about to paint a complicated subject, I tell you it works all the time. When we did the yellow and violet swatches before, we didn't get a dark color compared to the monochromatic ones. Instead of going darker, we only got a mixture that is leaning towards violet. That's enough, even if you use paint directly from the tube and still get a mid tone rather than a dark tone. As long as the features of the face are defined, that will do. Here's our complimentary colored, simple portrait painting. Here are the other colors that I tried, the same colors. I experimented with the planes of the head, but I got a little darker with my blue and orange combination. So far, I am liking the red and green mixture so much, especially seeing them side by side like this. We'll give you an idea which colors will look best in your painting style. If you like loose portraits, here's Scarlet lake and Quinacerdone red mixed with sap Green. I love how different the skin tones look, even if I used the same green. A quick recap, we used complimentary colors in painting a simple portrait. We learned to treat each paper as a scratch, to release some pressure. I showed you alternative colors you can work with. In the next video, let's work with three colors for our skin tone recipe. 11. 3-Color Recipe: Right, it's time for a three color recipe now. The demos will be faster as we swatch paint the planes of the head and do a simple portrait, since this is our third time working on the same subject. Here are the colors you'll need, a red, yellow, and blue, or alternatively magenta yellow and can. During the demos, I will share my top tips on why you need to treat water as a mixing component, why we should practice drawing and painting separately, and how and why we need to paint shadow shapes instead of the features of the face see in the next video. 12. Swatch with 3 Colors: It's time to work with three colors. Now we will use three different sets of primary colors. Red, yellow, and blue, magenta, yellow and cyan. And the earth tones counterpart the basic primary colors are red, yellow, and blue. And that's what we're taught in school. Here I have cadmium, red, Hansa, yellow light, and cobalt blue. These pigments are neutral versions of their colors. Or what others call true red, true yellow and blue. This color combination is what I emphasized in my previous color mixing class. For a limited palette landscape painting, I'm surprised that they can work with skin tones too. The first Swatch is mainly a combination of red and yellow, which is a tiny bit of blue to desaturate the mixture. If it works for you, swatch it. If not, keep adjusting, be patient, and be practice. You'll surely get faster in estimating how much of each pigment you need for a certain shade you want to mix next, add more water to that mixture and swatch. I know I said this earlier, but I'll say it again. Water is an essential mixing component when it comes to this medium. For the third Swatch, add more blue to the mixture and make it closer to a neutral brown. I love this combination because this pigments are usually present in beginner watercolor sets. I am sure that you'll have some or all of the colors or substitute pigments that I will share with you later. Don't forget to lift up some part of the Swatch for a lighter version. Lastly, add even more blue and mix a color that is darker than the third one. This shade will work for the shadowed areas of the skin. Keep adjusting until you find that perfect shade. It's amazing how versatile a primary color palette surely is. Now, don't forget to paint that sphere and use different shades that we swatch to make it look three D. Here's our red, yellow, and blue swatch. This can work well with a medium skin tone. I also tested out these combinations, but with a different order, red plus yellow for the first watch. Then more red was added, more yellow was mixed. And the last one is a combination of the three. Here we have cadmium red plus cadmium yellow light plus ultramarine blue. Then I replace the yellow with yellow ochre on the second one, both are leaning towards orange compared to our first Swatch. We also have pyl red, Rosendalight and cobble blue. Then pyle red with handsome yellow light and thalo blue, red shade. They are lighter and more pinkish. Now, let's talk about a second set of primary colors. Magenta, yellow, and can I was thought that primary colors are red, yellow, and blue. But when I was researching for this class, I found out that there are also primary colors of light, which is RGB, or red, green, blue. And primary colors of pigment, MY or cyan, magenta, and yellow. Just like how printers work with inks, watercolor is also a pigment. Technically, cyan magenta and yellow can substitute blue, red, and yellow. Curious as eye wash. I used Quinacridone magenta, Prussian blue for the yellow gumbo Chnova. Let's see how this combination works. Just like the red, yellow, blue primary set. Let's start with a magenta and yellow mix, with a bit of Prussian blue. You can already see how different they are, but both can be used as a skin tone shade. Add more water and paint in the second Swatch. Now go darker by adding more Prussian blue. This pigment is a bit overpowering, so be careful when adding that into your mixture. We now have a more neutral brown that could also work as a shadow color for the last one. Add even more blue to make it more neutral and tone down than the Swatch above it. Take time to paint this fear with the shades. I am just sitting this up, since our focus is on mixing the colors. But take it easy. Okay? This fear is really helpful in giving us an idea how the colors or shades look in a tree form. It's hard to appreciate it with just the swatches alone. I encourage you to paint 12 or multiple ones. Here's our magenta, yellow, and science. Watch as always, here are other colors that I used. Quin, magenta, quin gold, and cobalt blue. Here I experimented by substituting a neutral blue with cyan and it still looks good. Quin magenta, lemon yellow, and yellow blue. The forth swatch looks great for the darker parts of the face, isn't it? Quin red, yellow ochre, and ultramarine blue. Now, I used a pinkish pigment instead of magenta and it still looks great as a skin tone shade. Quin red, cadmium yellow light, plus Prussian blue, which looks fairly similar to the Swatch on the left. In my previous class, I also presented starter kits and found out that some brands like Daniel Smith offer an earth tone version of their primary colors. It was fun to experiment and test these colors. Let us know, work with an earth brown, yellow, and sky blue with the pigments available to me, I chose burnt sienna, yellow, ochre, and serilian blue. You can substitute this with any colors that are close to them. Honestly, I was a bit skeptical when experimenting with this combination. They look dull compared to the red, yellow, blue, and magenta yellow ion primary set. I initially thought that this won't work, but dear me, look at that color. It could work with an olive skin shade or other skin types. I really didn't expect this, especially with Erlian blue, since like ultra maron blue, that one is granulating. When we say granulating, the granules or particles of the pigment are big enough to be visible to the eyes. But it can also work well depending on the painting style that you are after. Go easy with the blue though, since if you mix more blue and yellow, it might turn green. Keep adjusting and testing the colors as needed. Don't forget the sphere. I love how these three primary color sets look and feel different from each other. Yet they all work as a skin tone color. Here's our Earth color primary swatch. Here are other alternative colors where the Swatch goes like this, brown plus yellow, more brown, more yellow. And then blue was added to the last one. Here we have light red maples, yellow, deep and erulian blue, which looks the same with burnt siena, light raw umber and manganese blue except for the last Swatch brown, red, yellow ochre and peacock blue looks a bit pinkish compared to burnt umber Rossi and a light and compose blue. Which colors are you testing with all the colors you tested? Here are my top pigs. Cadmium red, cadmium yellow, light and ultramarine blue, Pyal red, roscienalight and cobalt blue, quin magenta, quin gold and cobalt blue and burnt sienna yellow ochre and Erulian blue. How about you? A quick recap. We worked with three sets of primary colors, red, yellow, blue, magenta, yellow and cyan, and the earth tones. We learned that with pigments like watercolors, magenta, yellow, and cyan are considered the primary colors. I also shared alternative colors, and was surprised that earth tones can also work for skin tone shades. In the next video, let's paint the planes of the head with a three color combination. 13. Planes with 3 Colors: This is our third planes of the head painting, and I'll be using Quinacridone, magenta, gumbo ch nova, and Prussian blue. I've shown you alternatives earlier. You may choose any colors available to you. As always, I'll cover the whole shape with a watery mixture of the three colors combined, but just using a tiny bit of blue. I hope that this Ped version still works for you. Since it is our third time painting the same subject. I trust that you know the process by heart. Lift some areas of high light and let the first layer to dry. Next, let's work on these areas and start adding more pigments to the mixture. I also switch to a smaller brush since there will be tide places that we will be covering. This skin tone is lively and vibrant, isn't it? I used to think that color mixing, swatching, and documenting your favorite color recipes was a waste of time. But I was wrong. When you get used to color mixing, you can achieve the shades that you want. So keep practicing, leave to try again. And let's add the final details, adding even more blue to desaturate the mixture. And let's paint these parts. It's really satisfying to work with the details and the final layer. It gives a sense of accomplishment and I hope you're feeling the same. Let go of unrealistic expectations and you'll surely enjoy the process. That's also why I showed you how to draw the planes of the head with a transfer paper so we can focus on mixing our colors rather than perfecting the drawing. That's another practice for another day. Here's our primary colors planes of the head study. Of course, I also tried it with other combinations that I demonstrated earlier. We have the red, yellow, blue with cadmium red, handsome yellow light, and cobalt blue, followed by our magenta, yellow and blue, and the earth tones. For the last one, what do you think? Not much of a difference, right? A quick recap. We use the CMY, or cyan, magenta, and yellow primary color set for the planes of the head. By now, we've had lots of opportunities to practice painting the same subject, which should give us confidence. I showed you other alternative colors that could work. In the next video, let's challenge ourselves again by painting a simple portrait. And discuss how to paint subjects like this in a liberating way. 14. Portrait with 3 Colors: Our third portrait painting where I'll use my Earth dons burnt sienna, yellow, ochre and cerulean blue. We will cover almost the whole shape, but avoid the small highlighted areas of the face. Since this is our third time, I'll be painting the same subject. The demo is sped up and we'll be over in 3 minutes. I plan to skip this originally, but I know that there are some of you who still want to see me in action. Here you go, and I hope I'm not boring you, let dry and move on to the next layer. This time, I added more blue and more burnt sienna to the mixture, and we will paint these shapes. Notice that I kept saying shapes instead of specifically pointing out the features of the face, such as the eyes, ears, nose, or lips. Since I find it easier to work with portraits that way, we're not actually painting the eyes, but the shadow shapes that make an impression that that is an eye. Same with the ears, nose and lips. Leave this a dry onto the third layer, we go to continue what I was saying. When you are painting shapes instead of the features of the face, you begin to see it as a whole and we can make an impression instead of being pressured to paint a realistic face. In fact, this style of painting motivated me to work on portraits, again in a loose style. It's so liberating and rewarding. I hope that these vectors that I made showing the different shadow shapes are helping. Okay, going back, painting around the ear shape and wetting that line with water for a soft edge. Then load your brush would paint and have a go on it again. Leave this to dry and we're ready for the final details. Go darker by adding more blue and paint these shapes. Yes, shadow shapes go easy on the hair strands as long as you can distinguish the hair line. With a few shapes that will do. Here's our portrait using the primary colors, earth tone version. As always, I painted the same subject with the other set of primaries. Not so much difference between the three, isn't it? But which one is your favorite? Here are some loose portraits featuring vermilion hue, cadmium yellow light, and talor blue. While the other one used Quinacridone magenta, the same yellow and peacock blue. A quick recap, we painted the portrait again, but this time with earth tones. We learned to focus on painting the shadow shapes instead of the features of the face. I showed you how the portrait looks like with the other sets of primary colors. In the next video, let's discuss the final skin tone recipe using four colors. 15. 4-Color Recipe: Okay, this is our last recipe and my favorite too. For the last time, we will swatch, paint the planes of the head and a simple portrait. The demos are even faster, but I trust that you know the process by now. Please prepare a red, yellow, black and white like these pigments. Or a pink, transparent, yellow, black and white as an alternative. During the demos, I will also discuss how I choose my alternative colors, what I use as a watercolor eraser, and why it's important to give yourself some play time to improve your watercolor skills. See in the next video. 16. Swatch with 4 Colors: Let's use the Apelis palette as an inspiration for this last recipe. Here I have yellow ocher, cadmium red, ivory black and white, and the swatch will follow this order. Red yellow, add white, add more red, add more yellow, then mix to the first swatch. Let's begin. I was taught in some workshops that black creates a hole in your painting. So we were advised never to use it and that we have to mix our own darks. But through the course of this color mixing journey, I came across the Apes palette. Apes palette, an ancient one used by the Greek painter Apes comprises four colors. A red, yellow, white and black. Specifically, ermlion, yellow brown or yellow ochre, titanium white, and Mars black. That's when I realized. Of course, I can use black. You'll see later when I start adding black to the mixture that it creates beautiful, darker shades. Even Swedish painter Anders Zorn uses a similar palette consisting of mon yellow ochre, flake white, and ivory black. A modern day version replaces Vermillion with cadmium red light and flake white with titanium white. This is famously known as the Zorn palette. Okay. Here's our first set of swatch and don't forget the color in that sphere. For the second set, let's substitute white with water. Since technically, water is used to lighten a color with this medium. Using the apelus palette as R inspiration, we'll only need three pigments, red, yellow, and black. If you treat water as a mixing component two, that makes it a four color combination. For the swatch, the only difference is the second one where water was added to the mixture. I added more black to the last one. So when we lay them side by side, they look like twins. The spheres also have different vibes since the first one uses a base color where white was mixed, making it more opaque. Here are other combinations I tried. These sets follow a different order for better comparison. Red plus yellow, water was added, White was added, then black, and even more black was mixed. In case you're wondering how I'm choosing my alternative colors, I have swatched all my primaries, and I refer to this when selecting other combinations. Like how I picked scarlet lake instead of cadmium red and Naples yellow deep instead of yellow ochre. As a result, and of course, with lots of practice mixing my colors, the swatches look very similar to each other. Now, what about pink instead of red? Here's what they look like where quinacridone rose and Quinacridone Magenta were mixed with gambognova and cadmium yellow light respectively. That means you can still achieve the similar mixes using the apes palette as an inspiration shot. Now, what about Earth tones? Still fairly similar, aren't they? This is why I love color mixing so much, which leads me to my top combinations mixed with black and using water instead of white pigment. Cadmium red and yellow ochre, scarlet lake, and Naples yellow deep, Pacdon magenta and Cadmium yellow light and burn Ciena plus yellow ocher. A quick recap. We learned about the Pels palette consisting of four colors, a red, yellow, black and white. We tested using four colors and using three colors with water substituting white. I shared how I choose my alternative pigments. In the next video, let's paint our last planes of the head, and I'll share with you what I use as a water color eraser. 17. Planes with 4 Colors: This is our last planes of the head painting. For formality's sake, I will use cadmium red, yellow, ochre ivory, black, and Chinese white. For the exercise, you know the drill. Cover these areas with a light flesh tone by mixing yellow. And this time the white pigment, you just saw me use a paper towel to lift up some paint that exceeded the lines. And that's my tip for this video. As long as the paint is still wet, you can use a paper towel as an eraser. But don't rely on this too much. Most of the time I just let go of the mistakes, especially when I'm painting something loosely. Okay, let dry and onto the next layer. This time, you can slowly introduce black to the mixture to achieve a more desaturated flesh tone. And switch to a smaller brush for better control. Continuing what I was saying earlier, once the paint has dried go, you can still use a paper towel to lift up some paint. But you will need to scrub the area first with a clean, damp synthetic brush. Then pat it dry with a paper towel. Okay, lift this to dry and let's add the final details to paint these shadow shapes. I will be adding even more black to the mixture and make it closer to a neutral brown swatch to test and paint. The tricky part when lifting pains is when you are already working on the second or third layer, It's easy to rewet an area and pat it dry with a paper towel when you're just working on the background or first layer. But other than that, I learned that it's better to let it go or research what pigments are easy to lift and use a hot pressed watercolor paper if you intend to use the lifting technique more often. Here's our final planes of the head, using colors inspired by the appelles palette. I also tried it with just three pigments, Red, yellow and black substituted a pink like Quinacodone red, and a more transparent yellow, Gambo Chinova. I can't really see much of a difference between the three. Can you a quick recap? We painted the final planes of the head with four pigments. We learned that paper towels work like erasers with water colors. We compared other alternative colors. In the next video, let's work on our final portrait painting, and I'll share with you the importance of play time. 18. Portrait with 4 Colors: Her final portrait painting. Yeah, this time ali us scarlet lake Oreolin and ivory black starting with a very watery and orange mixture of the red and yellow. Olin is one of the yellows that I later discovered and tried. Most of the time I just use Gambo Genova and yellow ochre and never tried other yellow since I'm afraid they won't sit well with me. Okay, I just finished covering those areas while avoiding the highlighted parts and now I'm letting it dry for the next layer. Now I'm reloading my paint and started adding black to the mixture. It's not visible in the camera, but my black pigment is sitting on the left side of the palette. If you catch my brush going at that area, I'm simply reloading it with ivory black pigment. Let's cover these shadow shapes. Continuing what I am saying earlier, I was so familiar with my yellows that I refused to test out other colors and even other yellows from different brands. That's why I am grateful that this color mixing journey gave me confidence. Okay, leave this to dry first and mix a more neutral brown to cover the areas. My tip for this lesson is to give yourself some play time. And with that, I only meant time to experiment that try new colors or techniques that you've been wanting to do. Even try colors that you hate learning. Water colors can be a combination of serious study and play times. That's how I got the courage to try out new colors and purchase them and not consider it a waste of resources if the colors don't turn out as something I like, because I know from experience that I can use them to mix with other pigments. Instead, now we're ready to add final details, which are these shadow shapes with an even darker brown mixture. How are you feeling with your progress so far? I hope you're enjoying this class as much as I enjoy creating this one too. Here's our final portrait painting, of course, here are the alternatives I tried aside from the middle one leaning towards a pinkish tone. They're fairly close to each other in case you're wondering, here's how they look on loose portraits. A quick recap. We painted this simple portrait with red, yellow, black, and water. It's an alternative to white. I share the importance of giving yourself some play time with this Du. I also showed you the alternative colors and loose portrait samples. In the next video, let's learn how to find the right shade of skin tone using the Fitzpatrick Scale. 19. Finding the Perfect Recipe: There are various skin types which depend on one's genetics, lifestyle, and exposure to the song. But how do we choose which is the best color recipe for skin tones? We can look at the Fitzpatrick Scale as a reference. This scale is a numerical classification schema for human skin color. It was developed by American dermatologist Thomas Fitzpatrick in 1970s. Its main purpose is to estimate the response of different types of skin to ultra violet light. The scale ranges from type one to type six, with type one categorized as always burns and type six as never burns. Here's how my swatches look on the actual sketchbook. I have placed them side by side to see if there's any difference with the 123.4 color combinations. Let me share with you the colors I've tested to paint the Fitzpatrick scale. This might help you decide which recipe works best for you. For single color or monochromatic scheme, I tried burnt umber, burnt sienna plus black. And vention red plus black. I like the middle one the most. What about you for complimentary colors, I tried cobalt blue and orange, piral red and sap, green, yellow, ocher, and carbozol violet. It's still the middle one for me. For primary colors, I did try more combinations with various reds, yellows and blues. I can't really pick a favorite here since they all look very much the same. The results are not far from the ones inspired by the appelles palette with cadmium red and yellow ochre, scarlet lake, and oreolin mixed with black. Out of curiosity, I also mix secondary colors such as cadmium red, quinacridone, lilac, and sap green. And they still work. It's mainly because they contain traces of the primary colors. In a sense, you're just mixing the primary colors. Now let's see how this watches look side by side. Here are the monochromatic, complimentary primary and apes color side by side. What do you think? I guess the last two are the best recipe for me. But if I have to choose the colors that are the most flexible, I would go for a primary plus black combination. Specifically, a CMYK color palette. Just like how printers work, it's basically a combination of the primary and appelles. I mentioned earlier that the appellace was my favorite, but I wondered, what if you want to paint blue or green eyes, you'll definitely need a bluish pigment, right? With this palette, you will be able to mix your secondary tertiary and even the darker shades by adding black. Now in case you're wondering how I mix these shades, I have a little challenge for you. I want you to choose your favorite recipe and treat this as a homework to swatch your own Fitzpatrick scale. I believe that you can do this, especially if you didn't skip any of the video lessons. If you do so, the experience will teach you so much more than what a demonstration can do. Now that we have a general idea of the different skin types, we'll also most definitely have different favorite recipes. Let's have some fun and share which combination with specific pigment names works best for us in the discussion stab. Now here's a simple chart showing the ratio of the red, yellow, blue, and even water to achieve each skin types flesh tone. You can use this as your reference in doing your homework. A quick recap. We discussed what a Fitzpatrick Scale is and how it can be used to find the best skin tone recipe for you. I shared the different watches I made with 123.4 color recipes. What I think is the most flexible palette, which is actually a combination of the primary and a palace colors. I also showed you a simple chart showing the ratio of my red, yellow, blue, and water on how I mix my Fitzpatrick scale. In the next video, let's have a quick summary and a reminder on how you can claim your free book. 20. Claim Your Free eBook: Thank you for letting me teach you to complete the learning process. I shall now await for your project or an honest class review. In return, I'll send you a copy of this book containing over 100 color combinations I've experimented with to mix skin tone colors. I've spent hours and hours making this one. I am excited to share this valuable information with you. Don't forget to send me an e mail or connect with me on social media and mention skin tone book once you've done any or both of the two. As a quick recap, we swatched paint the planes of the head and worked on a simple portrait painting using a one color or a monochromatic color scheme. Two colors, specifically complementary colors that lie opposite each other On the color wheel, three colors with three different sets to red, yellow, blue, magenta, yellow ion. The earth tones counterpart four colors following the proven and tested appelles palette, where we also substituted white with water. This class gave us lots of opportunities to practice color mixing. To focus on combining the colors instead of fussing over portrait drawings. We also learned that there are multiple alternative colors you can work with. The key takeaway for this class is to never allow yourself to be hindered from painting anything you want just because you don't have the exact color. Sometimes all it takes is a bit of mixing to find the shade that you need. I am planning to launch a loose portrait painting class soon and other limited palette lessons. Please follow me on Skillshare for timely Updates. See on my other classes together. Let's make this world a little bit more colorful with our artworks.