This weekend I spent a bunch of time tackling skin tones.  I painted four figure studies and what I have come away with is : Skin tones are HARD!

Almost every single time I mixed a color on my palette to what I thought was an appropriate, pale, neutral skin tone that same color looked like garish clown makeup on the actual painting.

Overall, though, the process moved from clumsy, to awkward, to frustrating, and finally landed on “…meh.”  On the last attempt I switched from Ti White which had been making things a big chalky mess over to Flemish and Flake whites.  This helped enormously in brightening the colors without flattening them. It’s a shame that a tiny tube of Flemish white costs 3X the giant tube of Ti.

Last attempt and the best of you ignore the face. Oil on board 8″x10″

First attempt. Somehow in focusing on the colors I forgot how anatomy works. Oil on board 8″x10″

Third attempt. Starting to understand that colors are good. Oil on board 8″x10″

Second attempt. Better with the anatomy, colors are a chalky mess. Oil on board. 8″x10″