Painting Skin Tone With Watercolors

In my experience, one of the most difficult things to color in any medium is skin tone, whether it's light or dark skin. And for many, watercolor is already a difficult medium to control. In this class, I’ll show you the different color combinations and techniques I use, as well as take you through my methods for mixing, blending, and layering colors, shading and highlighting, and controlling the flow of color.

Everyone is welcome, of course, but if you don't feel confident in your portrait drawing skills, I recommend taking my previous Arbington classes on illustrating faces, as this is not a portrait drawing class and focuses solely on painting skin tones. 

My hope is that by the end of this lesson, you’ll gain the understanding you'll need to come up with your own color combinations for skin tones, and overall, feel more confident in your ability to create realistically colored portraits.

ASSIGNMENT

Your assignment is to paint a watercolor portrait, using the tips and techniques you learned in the videos. You don't have to paint two figures like I did; I only did so in order to demonstrate the differences in painting light and dark skin tones. Your drawing can be as stylized or "cartoony" as you like, as long as the skin tone colors are realistic. 

DELIVERABLE

A completed project should include the following:

1. Sphere Activity

2. Final Portrait Painting

For inspiration, check out my sample project in the gallery.

MATERIALS

• Artist Grade Watercolors 
• Three or Four Round Brushes of Different Sizes (I use sizes 0/0, 2, 6, and 10)
• You can't really go wrong with Princeton brushes in general, but I have this series's Round 20/0 brush for detail work and love it
• Brush Cleaner (optional)
• Masking Fluid (optional)
• A Cheap Brush or Colour Shaper (Taper Point Size 2) for Masking
• Watercolor Paper (I like using Canson Watercolor Blocks)
• Masking Tape (optional)
• Palette or Plate for Mixing Paints

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

• Character Design References Pinterest Board - Galleries, art references, tutorials and interviews from established and young promising artists in animation, movies, games, comics and illustration.
• Figure and Gesture Drawing: Tools for Self-Educating Artists - line-of-action.com
• Handy Art Reference Tool