The Skin Tones in My Portraits Look Wrong
Capturing flesh colours in portraiture is a common problem. Skin can look artificial or too uniform, and subtle tones may be elusive. Facial contours are sometimes painted as lines, making the portrait look harsh and amateurish. Portrait painting is often viewed as the artist’s last frontier, with the fear of producing an unsatisfactory portrait greater than that of an unsatisfactory landscape.
Common Problems with Portrait Painting
The following practices often cause unconvincing flesh colours:
- Including pigments labelled “flesh tint” or “flesh hue,” creating an idealised impression of skin.
- Using black or dirty earth colours to darken flesh tones.
- Painting with presumptions about skin colour, such as mixing red with white.
- Using delicate tones throughout, resulting in a bleached or flat portrait.
- Failing to observe the subject closely and simply “finishing” the painting.
- Painting lines to delineate facial features such as wrinkles or cheekbones.
Tips on How to Improve Portrait Painting
- Skin colours contain unexpected hues — violets, crimsons, greens — often from reflected light.
- Skin often contains deep tones, some almost black. Cool colours such as blue or violet darken skin more effectively than black.
- Dispense with black except for pupils. Avoid “flesh tint,” which reinforces the idea that skin should be beige or pink.
- Mix flesh colours from scratch using no more than three colours plus white.
- Apply a neutral under‑wash of thin acrylic to eliminate the stark white of the surface.
- Paint skin colours before features such as eyes and lips to avoid contamination.
- Practice by painting isolated features (nose, lips) before attempting a full portrait.
- Complete the portrait in stages; rushing at the end often ruins the work.
- Accept that the portrait may look odd until completed.
- Reworking the portrait two or three times is often necessary for tonal and colour adjustments.
Painting Children and Older People
All portraiture requires the same approach. Facial features consist of subtle changes in tone and colour, not lines. Children’s faces seldom have lines — only soft shadows. Wrinkles in older faces are also subtle marks, not drawn lines. Half‑closing the eyes and standing back helps identify the essential aspects of the portrait rather than fixating on small details.
Art Demo on Painting Shadows on Skin
My YouTube clip below shows how I painted Vermeer’s *The Pearl Earring* using underpainting and shading techniques. Notice the heavy shadows on the near side of the face, almost matching the background’s darkness.
Essential Art Materials for Painting Portraits
Good quality sables such as Kolinsky (Daler Rowney, Winsor & Newton) are crucial for portraiture
. Round brushes sizes 3, 6 and 9 are ideal. Burnt sienna and white make a good base for skin. Ultramarine cools the mix. Permanent rose, pthalo blue and burnt umber in small amounts are useful additions. Introduce colour sparingly for the desired mix. Linseed oil smooths unwanted brush marks.
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