About This Painting: I know I have not been doing enough figurative work so I am going to paint more.
The only way to become better at figurative work is to keep painting. I plan on painting at least one figurative work a week. I like the slightly larger format of working on figurative paintings because I want to add some of the interiors objects or other people to the painting. Working with the figure and perspective just ads one more thing to the learning curve, giving more challenge to my daily paintings.
When I start a painting I sketch it in with a mixture of transparent red oxide. I don't put in many details because it will all be painted over. I then mix three shade of skin tones to get started. A light, medium and dark value.
1. I use a limited palette so when mixing the batches of skin tone I start with medium value. I take cadmium yellow and add one of my reds either
Cadmium Red for warm skin tones or
Alizarin Crimson for cool skin tones tones, this mixture makes a nice orange color.Now I add a touch of blue. I use
Uultramarine Blue this is my warm blue. By adding the blue I now have a nice brownish ocher mix. This is my middle value.
2. Now I take a blob of white and add some of my middle value to it. I then warm it a little with red. this is my lighted value.
3. To make the darker skin tone take some of the middle tone mix and add a little virdian and alizaian to it. Now you have your three skin tones.
Never add white directly to you painting to lighten a skin tone it will make is ashen and too pale.
