MAGIC FLESH TONE FORMULA!

HOW TO MIX FLESH TONES

Mixing correct flesh tones is the Holy Grail of portrait painting! No wonder manufactures make tubes labeled "flesh"!!

The first thing to wrap your mind around is that a tube of paint labeled "flesh" - isn't!  
Don't be fooled into thinking you will buy a magic tube of flesh and begin painting accurate skin tones with it. (first of all, think logically - it is labeled "flesh" but WHOSE flesh? Yours? Anyone's you know? How about anyone's you have ever seen before??  Really look at the color and compare it to several types of real skin!

You may have done or have heard of others doing a great deal of work to find some artist's secret recipe to making fleshtones?    Hogwash!! While there are some common sense guidelines for specific skin types ... there is no one magic bullet formula for mixing "fleshtones."

Retrain your mind to think differently about "white" flesh, "brown or black" Flesh because there is no such flesh in real life!

While creating self-portraits with a group of children several of them candidly stated that they had white or black or brown flesh and reached for that color of pencil or paint.

My job was to teach them to see the actual colors in their flesh!

I held up a sheet of bright white typing paper which they all agreed was white. I passed out a sheet to each student and asked them to place their hand on the paper and now tell me what color their skin is. Surprisingly some still said the caucasian skin was "white" and any of color was black. I went on to demonstrate and explain the nature of flesh. They started seeing the actual colors instead of the labels.

*We are loaded with preconceptions about colors, shapes and objects at a very young age. When asked to describe something or draw it, we revert back to these preconceived notions learned very early in life. These are most likely very primitive perceptions of what something actually is.

Same holds true with color.
If asked "what color is the sky" many will just say "blue."  But is it just blue? Can you grab a tube of blue paint and paint any sky? (first decision would be which blue! "Sky Blue"??)

HOW TO PAINT FLESH:

Flesh is just like any other object you paint - it is subject to its origin and to its surroundings.  

What I mean by that is its origin may be native american, caucasian, etc,  while its surroundings may be wood, metal, colored cloth, the atmosphere, type of lighting, ie reflective light, and so on.
 

Knowledgeable artists represent a pure white flower or cloth using a myriad of colors not just white and gray/black.  That is how flesh is.  It isn't pure white, pink, black, brown etc.   

There is no single formula for flesh!!
So you might wonder if you should own a tube of "flesh" paint?   From my personal and teaching experience I say not early on as it can be more confusing than helpful.  Some tube "fleshes" tend to go muddy/gray rather quickly when mixed with other colors, so if you already own a tube or plan to buy one anyway... it is important to understand what colors make up your tube of "flesh" if you plan to use it as a base for mixing other needed flesh tones.  

You will find some common ground but in general, every time you paint a portrait, you will recreate what color "flesh" is. The key is to be observant to the local colors, reflective color, shadows, surroundings, etc.

If you would like a critique or have a question- please drop me a message! 

©CJ Rider

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New Canvas - aka - paint vampire

A New Canvas:

1. Ever have colors on a painting turn dull shortly after drying?
2. Or the surface is like the sahara desert even though you KNOW you laid on lots of paint?
3. Do you struggle with a new canvas trying to get enough paint on it? the surface sucks in the paint like a paint-vampire?

WELL... you are not alone! A new canvas or canvas board actually needs 2 or even 3 more layers of gesso with a light sanding inbetween.


WHY gesso a new canvas? From the manufacturer, the canvas is only thinly coated with a gesso leaving much of the nap or roughness of the canvas.

Sometimes the tops of the weave are very thinly coated. When you start painting with your expensive paints, you first must fill the nooks and crannies with paint before it will lay across the surface. You also must lay on enough paint to make up for the absorbency of the thinly gesso'd areas.
Also, when you paint with a thin layer of paint or use thinned paint it will drop down into the nap of the canvas  and fill up the nooks before it lays across the surface and gives you the color and consistency you desire. (moisture and pigment will also be sucked into the dry thirsty canvas)
You have probably seen paintings where the upper nubs of the canvas nap show their white tops through the paint? Unless you want this look, you need to apply more gesso before painting to fill up these gaps before starting your painting.
Even if it appears that you have enough paint on the canvas, as it drys, the paint is slowly drawn into the canvas dulling the color or making it sink into the nap.
Solution: Apply 2 or 3 layers of gesso, dried and sanded between each layer, - or apply as many layers until you have the surface you want.

TIP: stop using your expensive pigments as gesso - prime the canvas before you begin!

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ACRYLIC PAINT PROPERTIES -tips

 

1. ACRYLIC PAINT DRIES VERY FAST!!

Acrylic paint will sometimes dry faster than you can paint!

• don't paint in a draft
• don't paint in the sun
• don't paint near heat or air conditioning vent

 You can remedy fast drying by using an 'acrylic retarder medium' product that slows the drying time. Don't overdo it though, or you will end up with a painting that stays tacky too long!

Have a fine-mist spray bottle handy to spray a light mist of water over your palette and on the area you are working to keep the paint moist.  Keep it very light so the paint does not run.
        2.  ACRYLIC PAINT CHANGES COLOR WHEN DRY
You will find out early on that acrylic paint appears darker when it is dry.  To understand why, take a look at some acrylic "medium"  note how it is milky white when wet, but dries clear? Acrylic paint has this medium like product in it to make it flow and to float the pigment in. As a pigmented acrylic color dries this "medium" also dries and becomes clear allowing more of the pigment to show through thus making the color appear darker.

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Tip on acheiving VALUE balance in your art

grayscale posturized image vs full color image

Many paintings fail due to poor value balance.

If a painting is nearly all one value, it will lack life even if it is correct compositionally.

A way to see value is to:

1. Open image in photoshop
2. At the top of the screen select: Image/mode/grayscale
3. At the top of the screen select: Image/adjustments/posturize
4. set for around "5"
5. with experimentation of the numbers in step #3 and 4 you can see that the higher the setting the more detail shows up.
   
6. the idea is to not have the detail and only see larger shapes of value (light and dark).

As a pre-painting step - run your image through this process and then reference the resulting print-out to make sure you preserve proper values as you paint.

You can also take a photo of a completed painting and run it through this process to see if you have the needed value balance within the piece.

If you posturize a color image it can assist you in discovering subtle colors or give you coloration ideas to add to your painting!

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