Originally posted by Brian Neher at
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www.portraitartist.com/neher
After reading your posting on mixing flesh tints I thought that I might offer some advice that has helped me. I can only speak from my own experience, so I hope that it will be of some use to you. In order to achieve effective results in mixing flesh tones one must first have a solid knowledge of color theory. By keeping a mental picture of the color wheel in mind, you can mix just about any color that you wish. The use of complimentary colors is a vital key in producing convincing flesh tones. From your posting, it sounds like you are relying on all warm colors of different values in order to paint flesh. There needs to be a balance of both warm and cool colors when painting skin tones. The overall temperature of the skin may be warm, but cool colors must also be included in order to create a sense of volume, which gives the illusion of depth. One of the first things to find out is if your light source is warm or cool. By doing this, you can then determine whether your shadows are going to be warm or cool. For example, if you have a warm light source, such as incandescent light or direct sunlight, then your shadow areas are going to be somewhat cool. If your light source is cool, such as indirect sunlight, then your shadow areas are going to be somewhat warm in comparison to the other colors that are already on your canvas. In regards to complimentary colors, you can mix them together to produce what is referred to as a "gray" of varying degrees of cool or warm depending on how much of the warm or cool color that you add. These grays are often used in an area of painting when the form turns, referring to a plane which begins to recede away from the viewer's eye.
For example, if you have an indoor subject whose light source is warm and leans more toward the orange side, then in order to mix an appropriate gray you would lean towards the blue side of the color wheel.
Or if you had a color that was an orange/yellow then the compliment to mix would be a blue/violet. The concept of color can be simplified by using the model of the color wheel. Temperature changes in flesh tones, meaning changes in color such as from warm to cool or cool to warm are also a vital part of painting convincing skin tones. Say you have an outdoor subject whose face is entirely in shadow with very close values and not a lot of strong lighting or drawing to "hold on to". How are you going to paint this situation? One key is to use a temperature change instead of a value change. That means that in this situation the colors that are falling on the top planes of the face are going to be cooler than those on the bottom planes. The reason being is that the top planes are influenced by the cool blue sky when in indirect light outdoors and the bottom planes are a result of reflected light that is bouncing off of the ground or any other object that is nearby and produces a warmer color in relation to the top planes.
Change the color but keep the values the same or very close.
I hope that I haven't confused you by saying all of that. To narrow it down, some very important aspects to painting flesh tones are using complimentary colors and temperature changes. The best advice I can give you is to study the old masters such as Sargent and Sorolla. Look to see where they have made a temperature change and try to find out why they have done so. Also, the best exercise that an artist can do is to paint from life. By doing so you can see subtle colors and values, which a camera does not capture. Every color that you put on your canvas should have a purpose. Throwing bright color on your canvas in order to "brighten" up a painting without knowledge of where those colors should go is not good practice. Some good books on color theory are "Hawthorne on Painting" by Charles W. Hawthorne and "Oil Painting Techniques and Materials" by Harold Speed. Both of these are put out by Dover publications. As far as a base mixture, you can try some gold ochre mixed with cad red and white for a start. You can then mix your cool colors into this base in order to achieve some nice grays. I hope that this information will be of some use to you.