How to Mix Skin Tones in Watercolour
There are several ways to mix flesh tones in watercolour. Unfortunately, when I first started painting portraits I wasn’t aware of this fact. I thought I knew how to whip up a flesh tone using only my Jaune Brilliant No.1 and No.2, but I always found myself frustrated with the rather flat results. The Burnt Umber I used made the shadows look too dark and heavy, and adding white only made the final colour dull and lifeless. I was stuck, and I didn’t know why.
It took me a while to realise the error of my ways, and to realise that white is never the solution when it comes to mixing skin tones. In fact, over the years I’ve learned that there are several ways to bring your portraits to life – none of which use the Jaune Brilliant, Burnt Umber or the whites that I cherished so dearly.
If you’re after caucasian skin tones:
- Cadmium Red
- Permanent Rose
- Yellow Ochre
- Cerulean Blue
Skin tones are much more complicated than the pink tones I thought I could extract from my Jaune Brilliant pigments. In fact, skin tones are based on a combination of red and yellow pigments. Mixing Cadmium Red and Permanent Rose together will produce a great flesh tone that you can water down for highlights, and deepen with Yellow Ochre for the shadows. If you’re finding the shadows are too warm for your taste you can always add a tint of Cerulean Blue to cool things right down.
Alternatively…
- Cadmium Red Light
- Cadmium Yellow Medium
- Dioxazine Mauve
Mixing Cadmium Red Light and Cadmium Yellow Medium will also create a subtle base coat. Bring the Dioxazine Mauve in to create shadows.
If you need dark skin tones:
The last palette essentially made use of the orange-purple spectrum of colours – and whilst it can produce truly beautiful results, in my experience the first colour palette involving Cadmium Red and Permanent Rose is much more versatile. It also is easier to translate into darker flesh tones.
- Cadmium Red
- Permanent Rose
- Burnt Sienna
- Raw Umber
Instead of using Yellow Ochre or Cerulean Blue, use Burnt Sienna for the shadows or darkening of the skin. If you need a darker pigment, add Raw Umber until you’re happy with your final tincture.
Tips:
- There is no such thing as white when painting a portrait! If you think the colours are too dark, resist the temptation to add a white wash to lighten it. Adding white will dull the colour, and will leave your portrait looking flat. It is far better to add water until the mixture looks right on paper. If you’ve already applied the paint and you feel the colours are too dark, use water, a paint brush and tissue paper to gently lift the paint off the page.
- Use test paper to avoid colours you just don’t want. The Cadmium Rose – Permanent Rose mix looks very dark on a white palette, but when applied to paper it looks like a much more natural skin tone. Having said that, it’s easy to forget that watercolour lightens as it dries. For this reason it’s always helpful to have test paper handy. Make sure the test paper is the same type of paper as the sheet you’re painting on as the paper plays a part in the final colour you see.
- Build up your painting in washes. Skin is made up of a variety of colours, not just one colour for the shadows, another for the mid-tones and a third for the highlights. Watercolour’s strength lies in it’s ability to create near translucent washes, giving you the ability to build up layers of ever deepening colours. Gradually building up your colours also saves you from ruining that drawing that took you two hours to put to paper by enthusiastically painting a thick layer that you may later come to regret.
- Don’t forget the whites of the eyes. When you’re painting the first translucent base colour of your portrait, don’t be afraid to paint over the whites of the eyes. There is no such thing as a pure white eye – in fact, they only seem to be found in over-retouched photographs. You can enhance the contrast between the whites of the eyes and the skin when you add the mid-tones and details in later.
- Remember your surroundings. If you’re painting an image of someone next to a red wall, chances are they will be appear to be redder than they would be if they were standing a couple of feet away from it. Why? The light that is illuminating your subject will probably have bounced off that red wall, picking up the colour as it did. Try it for yourself; find a piece of coloured paper or plastic and stand in direct sunlight with a mirror. The closer you are to the coloured object, the more of its pigment should appear to be reflected on your skin.
Our model Elise is black, of Haitian ancestry. I started with a burnst umber but found it muddy, so I mixed up Quin Magenta, Permanent Orange and then neutralized it with Hooker’s Green. Since all are transparent, I was able to keep a glow in her skin. With less orange it’s great for shadows, and with more orange it works for the warmer tones in the skin.
A 78 year old self taught
student of watercolor. Been wondering about skin tones awhile. I googled the question and you came up. How awesome is thst. I can’t wait to try out your suggestions . Thanks so much. Vickey stamps
Thank you so much for this article – it’s so great that you are willing to share your knowledge and expertise . I have not long taken up watercolour painting and this is really helpful. x
Thank you for these helpful and instructive points. Portraits are complex as are humans !
This is very helpful, thanks.
Oh my…thank you, thank you. I friend sent me your article and it was what I needed exactly. I usually do landscapes but I have a new granddaughter and also two grandsons and my soul is pressuring me for an attempt at portraits of the three!
This is such a fantastic article. Very helpful and beautifully designed. I am new to watercolor, having used oils my whole life, and am attempting to teach myself. Your article is an excellent reference.
My one question is: Where can I find Dioxazine Mauve? I have found Dioxazine purple and violet, but no mauve.
Thank you! I was even able to make this work with my cheap Crayola watercolor set thanks to your instructions!
Enjoying a mixed media class and attempting to incorporate watercolors in place of acrylics where it looks like it will work. When it dawned on me that flesh tones were a mystery, your paint suggestions came to the rescue. Thanks!
Can you please tell me where you got the dioxazine muave?
Hi Mystyque – dioxazine mauve is a tricky one to find, not because it’s scarce but because every brand seems to call it by a different name. Personally, I use both Winsor Violet (Dioxazine) from Winsor & Newton, and Carbazole Violet from Daniel Smith. If you want to buy from another brand, the pigment colour index number you’re looking for is PV23. ‘Art is Creation‘ and ‘Handprint‘ both have useful charts on their websites that you can use to find dioxazine mauve’s colour name in other brands. Having said that, you can also mix a dioxazine mauve substitute at home by using Ultramarine Blue (which has a red tint) and Alizarin Crimson (which has a slight blue tint). It may not be quite as transparent as the out-of-the-tube pigment, but it will do the job and does mix beautifully.
Thank you so much for this! I would have been lost trying to find the dioxazine muave so thanks!
I always had the problem in mixing flesh tones until now. Thank you so much Ella!
Hi Ella, I have a lot of old tins but I am stymied. Where do you get the plastic well’s to insert? Oh, Thank you so much for sharing!
Hi Antonio, I just sent you an email with a few more details options you could use. Hope they help! x
Hey! Can you make a post about that? I would love to know too!
Hi ella. Thanks for this post! This really helped me!:) Just a quick question, where did you get the watercolor palette on the top picture?
Hi Amy – I actually make these watercolour palettes from old advertising tins. If you’re based in America though I know J Fernweh and Greenleaf and Blueberry both make and sell their own.
What a pleasure to find someone who idfniietes the issues so clearly
Thanks for this! I wanted to do a practice painting just working on eye studies, with the skin that surrounds it, and I was really struggling myself.
Fabulous advice Ella. Thank you for this. I am very new to watercolour and was just about to start my first painting of my grandson. He is half Indonesian half New Zealand so a beautiful caramel. Your mix allowed me to achieve the perfect colour blend. I got a bit over zealous with the cerulean blue in the darker spits and it has settled into the osier texture. However after it has dried it looks fine. This is an easy flexible colour mix. I used Scarlet red (WN) as didn’t have cadmium. Perm rose yellow ochre and cerulean. I added a little burnt sienna or burnt umber where I wanted to. Thank you.
I started teaching myself watercolors about 6/7 months ago and creating a good flesh tone has been the bane of my artistic self’s existence (so much so that I’ve simply avoided people in any of my work). I just tried the cad red, perm rose, yellow ochre & cer blue mix and, no joke, let out a loud “oh my… yay”, followed by throwing the mixing bowl with that mix in it due to being a bit too excited. Thank you for this… I can now work on the painting I’ve been wanting to do since I started this journey.
Thank you!!! So useful!!
So glad it helped! Best of luck with your new creations x