Watercolor Skin Tone Recipes: Color Mixing with a Limited Palette

Let’s discover different skin tone recipes with watercolors using 1, 2, 3 and 4 color combinations. Discover which colors work together when mixed and which don’t. Then apply what we learned by painting swatches, geometric planes of the head and a simple portrait.  Painting portraits can be intimidating but don’t worry, I’ll be with you every step of the way. I have also provided tools you can use to make the drawing part easier.

We will explore different color combinations and apply basic color theories to find the best watercolor skin tone recipe.

To give you a glimpse of what’s in store for you, the class is divided into 6 main sections:

1. Monochromatic Color. This is where we’ll use 1 pigment as a base color of the skin tone. We will swatch, paint the planes of the head and a simple portrait.
2. Complementary Colors. Two colors will be combined to achieve a skin tone shade. We will also do the same exercises mentioned above.
3. Primary Colors. We will discuss 3 different primary color sets that work well with skin tone shades. The same exercises will be done to gain confidence.
4. Apelles Colors. We will explore an old but effective color combination for portraits and master mixing by doing the same exercises.
5. Shades of the Skin. Using the different color combinations mentioned above, we will paint the different skin shades based on Fitzpatrick’s scale.
6. Bonus Lessons. I will share with you some useful tools in drawing portraits without using a grid so we can focus more on color mixing rather than sketching perfect portraits.