How To Mix Skin Tones

how to mix skin tones beginners guide to oil painting

Introduction

Welcome to this month’s Oil Painting Blog for Beginners.*

In this month’s issue we will be looking at ‘HOW TO MIX SKIN TONES’. This will be a quick beginner’s guide and introduction to the subject. We will be looking at a few simple skin tone colour mixes that you can use to create your own portraits. We will also be looking at various portraits/skin details painted by me over the years along with a few that we teach here at the studio.

There is no right way or wrong way to mix and create colours for your portraits. Even with this simple guide your paint mixes will be subject to the environs of where you are when creating the painting, for example, if your subject is placed in cool or warm light, is in light or in shadow and if other colours are bouncing or reflecting off your subject.

If you are a complete beginner, I’d suggest just painting in black and white first. This eliminates having to worry about mixing colour and it will be a simple way to introduce your eye and brain to painting lights and darks (value). Thereafter, try starting off with two browns, a white and a black.

The following is an example of the potential skin colours that can be made from Old Holland’s Red Umber, Burnt Umber, Titanium White and Ivory Black. You can use any quality brand of Titanium White and Ivory Black.

using old holland paint to create skin tone

If you are using Old Holland Red Umber and Burnt Umber to create your skin tones you may find them a little cooler in temperature and more “porcelain like” when comparing them to Burnt Sienna and/or Transparent Red Oxide which may tend to create skin tone mixes that are a little warmer in temperature.

comparison of paint colours with different oil paint brands

Other possible skin colour mixes include mixing a blue, yellow and red together. For example, a Winsor and Newton (Artists’ Oil) French Ultramarine Blue, Bright Red and Yellow Ochre. Then have a go at varying these skin tone mixes by creating additional lights and shadows or tints, tones and shades which can be made by adding varied amounts of white, grey and/or black.

potential skin colours that can be made from old holland paint

Various Portrait and Skin Details

The following are a few visual examples of different skin tone mixes that I have used over the years when painting skin.

To cool down the skin tone and/or create shadow in your skin mixes, try also adding various shades of green, blue or black.

To warm up the skin and create lights you could try adding various shades of yellow, oranges and/or warm/cool whites.

how to mix skin colour examples oil paint

example of how to mix skin colour oil painting

A Few We Teach Beginners To Paint At The Studio

These are a few of the paintings we teach our beginners to paint at the studio and include studies after Sorolla, Lautrec, Peploe, Potthast and Winslow. We plan to add a few more over the coming months.