4 steps to blend a light skin tone

4 steps to blend a light skin tone

Skin tones are indistinct; they are not bright and clearly recognizable like a pure color, such as bright red, blue, or yellow. Therefore, they can pose a significant challenge to mix.

To make it easier, you will find basic recipes below for mixing a light skin tone. However, keep in mind that every skin is different, so feel free to experiment to see what, for example, one shade of red or another shade of red does in a mixture for that specific skin.

Mixing colors from the base colors

No matter what medium you work with, the colors you need to mix always remain the same. If you understand mixing, you can apply the same color combinations to both painting and drawing.

‘Amber’, oil on linen

Starting from the base colors, mixing a light skin tone consists of yellow with some red, and finally white to lighten the overall look. To make the color cooler, add a touch of blue. To make the color darker, use less white and slightly less yellow. It is important that the color blue never dominates; it really only needs to be a minimal amount.

If your mixture is too yellow, you need more red and possibly blue. If your mixture is too red, you need more yellow and possibly blue, and so on.

For a very dark shadow, it is sometimes useful to add a touch of black to your mixture.

‘Lauran’, colored pencil on sanded paper.

The steps for mixing with ready-made base recipes

There are various options, all of which yield slightly different results. Be sure to experiment to see what works for your specific skin tone. Whether you use acrylic paint, oil paint, pastel crayons, colored pencils, or pastel pencils, these mixtures always work, provided they are used in the correct proportions!

• Base: cadmium yellow medium/yellow ochre + titanium white + a touch of cadmium red. You can lighten the skin by choosing white for your mixture and make it cooler by replacing some cadmium yellow medium with lemon yellow and/or adding a hint of blue.
• Warmer shade: base with a smaller proportion of titanium white and yellow ochre + more cadmium red and cobalt blue/cerulean blue/permanent green. Burnt umber can also serve as a dark substitute for yellow.B
• Grayed, cooler shade: base with a smaller proportion of titanium white and yellow + a touch of extra red (for cooler shade/pinkish areas, possibly some of the cooler Alazarine Crimson Red as well) + extra cobalt blue/cerulean blue/permanent green + optionally ivory black (to make it very dark).
• Light areas: base + extra titanium white + optionally extra yellow to make the shade warmer.

If you want to make the color a bit warmer, flesh ochre can also be a nice addition, or transparent oxide red or ‘terra rosa’ from Winsor & Newton. For a slightly warmer skin tone, you can also mix alazarine crimson with burnt sienna and (partially) replace the cadmium red and cadmium yellow with it.

‘Arwin and Hugo’, oil on canvas

Tip!

Do you like recipes where you literally see the quantities listed, in the book ‘1500 Color Mixing Recipes‘ from William F. Powell’s you will find clear explanations and recipes per skin tone.

Would you prefer to learn how to mix skin tones under guidance? Then my online courses might be something for you..

Hopefully, these tips have been helpful. Do you have any further questions, or is anything still unclear? Feel free to leave a message ;-).