Watercolor Skin Tutorial ♦ How to Mix Skin Colors for Painting, by Danica Sills on YouTube. 12 min 19 s.
- Video length
- 12 min 19 s
- Time to do it
- 20 minutes
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Steps
- 8
What you need
Steps
Put a small amount of cerulean blue, quinacridone red, nickel quinacridone gold and Payne's grey on your palette. Leave space between each color.
Wet your brush and pick up mostly yellow, then touch it to a little red. Mix on the palette until you get a clean orange.
Add a very small amount of blue to the orange. Stir it in slowly. This neutralizes the orange and starts the skin base.
Test the mix on a scrap of watercolor paper and let it dry. Watercolor dries lighter, so adjust before painting.
For lighter skin, use more yellow and water. For deeper skin, add more red and a little blue, and keep testing.
Mix a separate cooler version with more blue and a touch of Payne's grey. Use it for shadows and the sides of the face.
Paint a grid of swatches on cold press paper. Change one color at a time and label each mix so you can repeat it.
Apply the base color first, then drop in warmer red on cheeks and cooler grey-blue in shadows while the paper is still damp.
Tips and common mistakes
Add blue a little at a time; too much turns skin grey or muddy.
Keep notes on ratios so you can mix the same tone again.
Use a filbert brush to lay even washes and a clean water pot to avoid dirtying colors.
Let each test swatch dry before judging the color.
Questions
What colors do I need to mix skin tones?
A blue, a red and a yellow are the basics. Payne's grey helps with shadows. Cerulean blue, quinacridone red and nickel quinacridone gold are one workable set.
How do I make the skin tone darker?
Add more red and a little blue to your base mix. Keep adding water so the paint stays workable and test on paper first.
Why does my skin mix look grey?
You probably added too much blue or mixed too many colors. Start again with a clean orange and add blue in tiny amounts.
This guide was drafted from the video's details and general task knowledge. It has not been checked against the full video. Check the video and relevant product instructions before following a procedure. Report a correction.
