This was tougher. I have seen Dean Mitchell's wonderful painting on the internet and I can't help but compare my attempt at skin tones. Even on the internet his are so rich with wonderful darks. When working from life you see so many different colors that do not show up in the photos I use to tweak these images.
My palette from a couple of days ago with Photoshopped color samples. It may be a little late but I need to do color charts of skin tones. Just look at the many different colors of makeup out there. I remember my first pastel class when the instructor told me to add green to the shadow. I did what he said expecting weird results only to be amazed at the ability to create depth and dimension on a face. Just look at Rose Frantzen's portraits some have green and it works perfectly. There is a limit to blues and greens, sometimes too much with the wrong combination will give someone a dirty face or worse yet a five o'clock shadow on a woman.
11" x 14" oil on panel
These words sound horribly racist now but "yellow man", "red man" and even pale face were used to describe the colour of a person's skin for a reason. When I was a kid I never understood why people told me I have olive skin. I don't have green skin, but now I know that I do. Sort of. You've already got experience with the Zorn palette which is great for getting a multitude of skin tones.
ReplyDeleteWhoops, hit the enter button before I was done. This guy does a great job showing you how to make the colour chart for the Zorn palette. http://michaellynnadams.com/zorn-palette/
ReplyDeleteThanks Jessica, this is certainly a more simplified palette.
DeleteI was fascinated by some early Renaissance portraits at the National Gallery. They had an underpainting in a dull green (terre verte probably) and then a pinkish color over that in tiny hatchered strokes. It got the shadow tones on the face quite well.
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting. I need to get over my fear of green. I can always paint over it. When reading the link Jessica posted the artist mentioned that he spent 45 minutes just mixing paint. That is one thing I cannot capture on the photos.
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