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    Why do My Skin Tones Look Lifeless? Plus 25 Solutions to Other Portrait Painting Peeves: Tips and Techniques on Oil Painting Portraits, Mixing Skin Colours, Eyes, Hair and More
    Why do My Skin Tones Look Lifeless? Plus 25 Solutions to Other Portrait Painting Peeves: Tips and Techniques on Oil Painting Portraits, Mixing Skin Colours, Eyes, Hair and More
    Why do My Skin Tones Look Lifeless? Plus 25 Solutions to Other Portrait Painting Peeves: Tips and Techniques on Oil Painting Portraits, Mixing Skin Colours, Eyes, Hair and More
    Ebook241 pages1 hour

    Why do My Skin Tones Look Lifeless? Plus 25 Solutions to Other Portrait Painting Peeves: Tips and Techniques on Oil Painting Portraits, Mixing Skin Colours, Eyes, Hair and More

    By Rachel Shirley

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    About this ebook

    A troubleshooting guide for portraiture.

    Portraiture is often seen as the last frontier of representational art as every detail has huge consequences upon whether a portrait looks like the person depicted. The beginner need not venture far before encountering a possible minefield of problems. Common issues might be why a portrait painting looks childish, eyes look like marbles, hair looks like a wig or noses appear skewed.

    Such frustrations and many others might be encountered by professional and amateur portraitists alike, whether it is to capture the highlights in eyes or to make skin tones appear three-dimensional. It is all part of learning to paint. If the issue persists, however, the problem is likely to become a creative block in portraiture. This is where this book comes in.

    Each issue is tackled candidly and in-depth, consisting of a description of the issue concerned, suggested solutions via the art materials required and painting exercises.

    Now with large images for tablets, twenty-six common “peeves” associated with portraiture are tackled within this book. A myriad of other matters relating to portraiture are explained, including suggested pigments to use for ethnic subjects, painting from life, portrait photography and more – in total, with over 150 colour images. Sections I and II within the after matter of this book provides two step-by-step demonstrations for first-time explorers of skin tones.

    Some of the images within this book can be found in my other Oil Painting Medic Book, Portrait Painting in Oil: Ten Step by Step Guides from Old Masters. Other images have been sourced from my fine art paintings and commissions.

    My other book on portraiture: Portrait Painting in Oil: 10 Step by Step Guides offering demos on painting old master such as Botticelli, Vermeer and Rossetti might also be of interest.

    Dimensions of hard copy: 8.5x5.5in and 142 pages with 27,000 words.

    The author has a BA Hons Degree in Fine Art from London as well as a PCET teaching qualification from Warwick.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRachel Shirley
    Release dateSep 21, 2012
    ISBN9781301654161
    Why do My Skin Tones Look Lifeless? Plus 25 Solutions to Other Portrait Painting Peeves: Tips and Techniques on Oil Painting Portraits, Mixing Skin Colours, Eyes, Hair and More
    Author

    Rachel Shirley

    I have practiced oil painting from the age of six and have since been involved in countless projects and commissions. A graduate from Kingston University, Surrey and with a PCET teaching qualification from Warwick University, I have won competitions, taught life drawing and have written several books and many articles on oil painting and teaching art.

    Read more from Rachel Shirley

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      Book preview

      Why do My Skin Tones Look Lifeless? Plus 25 Solutions to Other Portrait Painting Peeves - Rachel Shirley

      Book Sample of Why do My Skin Tones Look Lifeless?

      Comprehensive troubleshooting guide on portrait painting. Find a beginner’s section on portraiture, as well as the essential pigments to capture skin tones. This is followed by constructive advice on painting eyes, different-coloured hair, noses and remedial techniques. Chapters include, ‘my ethnic skin colours look dirty,’ ‘the eyes on my portrait look like marbles’ and much more. With a step by step demo. 27,000 words and 150 images.

      Note: this ebook book is also available in a bundle ebook entitled ‘The Ultimate Oil Painting Solution’ which consists of 3 books: Why do My Clouds Look Like Cotton Wool? Why do My Skin Tones Look Lifeless? and Why do my Ellipses Look Like Doughnuts? at a lower cost per book than if the 3 were purchased singly

      Oil Painting Medic

      Why do My Skin Tones Look Lifeless?

      Plus 25 Solutions to Other Portrait Painting Peeves

      Tips and Techniques on Oil Painting Portraits, Mixing Skin Colours, Eyes, Hair and More

      Rachel Shirley

      ISBN: 9781301654161

      Text, photographs and illustrations copyright Rachel Shirley 2012

      All rights reserved

      Dedication

      For Harriet and Joseph

      With special thanks to: (in alphabetical order)

      Catherine, Cheryl, Christine, Elizabeth, James, Lorraine, Olivia, Philip, Ruth and Samantha

      First Published in 2012 by Rachel Shirley Text, photographs and illustrations Rachel Shirley 2012. All rights reserved The Right of Rachel Shirley to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 Section 77 and 78. Smashwords Edition License Note This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Contents for Why do My Skin Tones Look Lifeless? Plus 25 Solutions to Other Portrait Painting Peeves

      Introduction to Why do My Skin Tones Look Lifeless?

      Solutions for Starting Out in Portraiture

      Chapter 1 Portraiture Needs Specialised Equipment, Doesn’t It?

      Chapter 2 I’m Anxious about Starting my Portrait

      Chapter 3 How do I Mix my First Skin Colour?

      Chapter 4 Art techniques for Portraiture Seems Complicated

      Chapter 5 My Portrait Painting Looks Childish

      Chapter 6 I Don’t Know what’s Bugging Me About My Portrait

      Chapter 7 How do I Erase a Mistake from My Portrait?

      Solutions for the Portrait Setup

      Chapter 8 I Have no Suitable Photos for Portraiture

      Chapter 9 My Portrait Looks Off-balance

      Chapter 10 How do I Paint a Portrait from Life?

      Chapter 11 What do I do With the Backgrounds to My Portraits?

      Solutions for Painting Skin Tones

      Chapter 12 Why do My Skin Tones Look Lifeless?

      Chapter 13 My Skin Tones look Patchy

      Chapter 14 How do I Darken the Colour of Skin?

      Chapter 15 My Ethnic Skin Colours Look Dirty

      Solutions for Painting Facial Features

      Chapter 16 The Eyes on my Portrait look like Marbles

      Chapter 17 The Noses in my Portraits look Skewed

      Chapter 18 The Teeth in my Portrait look like Pegs

      Chapter 19 The Mouth on my Portrait looks Wrong

      Solutions for Painting Hair

      Chapter 20 Facial Hair on my Portrait looks Stuck On

      Chapter 21 The Dark Hair on My Portrait Painting Looks Wiggy

      Chapter 22 Blond and Ginger Hair on my Portrait Resemble Straw

      Solutions for Painting Subjects of Various Ages

      Chapter 23 Skin Textures on My Portrait Look too Linear

      Chapter 24 My Child Portrait Looks like a Little Adult

      Solutions for Painting the Form

      Chapter 25 Hands in My Portrait Painting has Fingers like Sausages

      Chapter 26 Clothes Look Plastic in my Portrait Painting

      After Matter

      Step by Step Demonstration on Painting a Hand

      Step by Step Demonstration on Portrait Painting

      A Shopping List if Starting out in Portraiture

      Glossary

      About the Paintings in This Book

      Books by the author

      Introduction to Why do My Skin Tones Look Lifeless?

      Portraiture is often seen as the last frontier of representational art as every detail has huge consequences upon whether a portrait looks like the person depicted or if flesh tones look convincing. The beginner need not venture far before encountering a possible minefield of problems. Common issues might be why a portrait painting looks childish, eyes look like marbles or hair looks like a wig.

      Such frustrations and many others might be encountered by professional and amateur artists alike, whether it is to capture the highlights in eyes or to make skin tones appear three-dimensional. It is all part of learning to paint. If the issue persists, however, the problem is likely to become a creative block. This is where this book comes in.

      Each issue is tackled candidly and in-depth consisting of a description of the issue concerned, suggested solutions via the art materials required and painting exercises.

      In total, twenty-six common peeves associated with portraiture are tackled within this book, including why noses appear skewed and why a portrait has teeth that resemble pegs.

      A myriad of other matters relating to portraiture are explained, including tonal values, composing a painting and taking suitable photographs for portraiture, in total, with over 150 colour images. Sections within the after matter of this book outlines two step-by-step demonstrations: one on painting hands (to complement chapter 3), the other portraiture.

      Some of the images within this book can be found in my other Oil Painting Medic Books, Portrait Painting in Oil: 10 Step by Step Guides from Old Masters and Skin Tones in Oil: 10 Step by step Guides from Old Masters. Other images have been sourced from my fine art paintings and commissions. Details about all these paintings can be found in section IV in the after matter.

      If the problem sought after is not in this book, it might be in one of my other Oil Painting Medic books within this series (see bibliography).

      Alternatively, the aforementioned book on portraiture offers prescriptive instructions on how to paint different subjects sourced from old masters.

      Solutions for Starting Out in Portraiture

      Chapter 1: Portraiture Needs Specialised Equipment, Doesn’t It?

      The traditional view of portraiture is that a purpose-built studio, an artist’s easel, a mahl stick, not to mention an array of earth colours, are essential for the production of satisfactory portraits in oil. Racks of paint brushes for every mark possible must be a requisite, as well as huge canvases and a litany of art mediums.

      In fact, this is far from the truth. I personally use a corner of a room, several oil pigments and basic art materials. Everything the portraitist needs except the art surfaces can be stored in an average-sized toolbox. The artist may tailor the materials to individual needs, but essentially, portrait painting can be a simple practice as can be seen within this book. A summarising shopping list of the art materials required can be found within section III at the back.

      Essential Pigments for Portraiture

      Traditionally, portrait artists are seen to require dozens of art pigments to produce the desired skin pigment or eye colour. Personally, I find many such earth colours dull and unnecessary for mixing skin colours. Superfluous to requirement are: yellow ochre, saw sienna, raw umber, terre verte, cadmium orange, vermillion and Payne’s grey. The pigment labelled ‘flesh tint’ or similar has never been used in my portrait paintings as I prefer to mix my colours from scratch. The essential colours I use for portraiture amounts to just seven (see chapter 3). An additional several are optional. The aforementioned shopping list at the back details pigments and their associated necessities.

      Prolonging the Life of Sables for Detail

      Specialised art brushes can be costly, so care is important to ensure brushes last. Sables are essential for portrait painting, but an assortment of brush shapes is not necessary. The artist may begin with two or three of each type. I purchase the best quality sables for blending and detail although synthetic sables would be a suitable cheaper alternative. Avoid inferior brushes that have no springiness to the bristles. For impasto effects and blocking in large areas of colour, I will purchase stiff brushes from a DIY store. The picture shows the implements I have used for most portraits. From the left, a palette knife, a no. 1 and 3 round sable, a fan brush, a no. 6 and 10 filbert and a large bristle.

      The life of art brushes can be prolonged by avoiding industrial spirits such as turps. Between colour mixing, I will sometimes wipe excess paint onto a rag rather than swill in spirits, but when doing so, will always use low odour artist’s thinners such as Sansador. At the end of the session, I will massage the bristles against a bar of soap (reserved for this purpose) and run under a hot tap. Once the water runs clear, dry and then smooth a little Vaseline along

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