Colour Tutorial for portraits - Color Theory Tutorial for portrait artists - lessons on using color for portrait art.

Specific colours to use for portraits

http://www.portrait-artist.org/color/color-tutorial3.html

This is going to be a relatively simple page, because I have a rather basic colour palette method. I use warm and cool primary colours, so I choose tubes of paint that I consider "warm" and "cool". (If you don't know what I'm rambling on about with my "warm" and "cool", consult the portrait painting tutorial

So, my acrylic, alkyd, watercolour or oil paint palette would be similar to this list:

• White—Titanium or Flake White

• Cool yellow—Lemon yellow or cadmium Yellow light

• Warm yellow—Yellow ochre or Naples Yellow

• Cool red—Alizarin Crimson or Rose

• Warm red—Cadmium Red Light or Vermilion

• Cool blue—Cobalt Blue or Ultramarine Blue

• Warm Blue—Manganese Blue or Cerulean Clue

• A brown, like Burnt Sienna. (optional)

• A "dark" (substitute for black) like Paynes Grey or Indigo.

I also usually have a few tubes of "earth" tones, like Umbers or Siennas. If I am in the mood, I'll also have a few greens and purples, other "fun" colours. But the colours I've listed above are all that I really need to mix whatever colours I desire on my palette.

If you are wondering why I don't use black, I gotten in the habit of not using it. I never have missed using that black tube of paint. Besides, I have seen many examples of newbie artists abusing and overusing black paint. They think that all they have to do to get a shadow tone is to mix black with whatever colour they are using. It doesn't work that way. It makes the shadow look flat and dead. If an artist blends black into enough of their colours, they'll end up with a dull, lifeless and muddy painting.

This doesn't mean that I think black should never be used. Just carefully, with knowledge and understanding of colour mixing, Get Helen Van Wyk's book  on colour mixing to help you learn how to mix colours properly.

A few color formulas:

My "formula" for a typical peachy flesh tone might be: White, Yellow Ochre, and Cadmium Red Light. I would mix a lot of white, with a bit of Cadmium Red Light and a touch of Yellow Ochre.

A darker flesh tone might be Burnt Sienna, Yellow Ochre, White, and a bit of Rose.

You need to mix and experiment. And - when you lay down your palette, you should already have a colour scheme in mind. (Once again, read my portrait painting tutorial if you don't know what I'm talking about).

And, keep your colour scheme harmonious by mixing one colour blend with others. For instance, if you have mixed a flesh tone you like, and now you want to add a shadow to a face, consider blending your mix of flesh tone into the shadow colour you have chosen. (If you were to make a blue shadow, don't just put down some blue paint out of the tube onto the canvas. Add some of your flesh tone mix into the blue, and then paint it on the canvas.)

Lights
Light 1 - A clean, clear color for the lightest lights: combines white, yellow ochre and cadmium red light.
Light 2 - A basic flesh tone: combines white, yellow ochre, cadmium red light and cerulean blue.
Light 3 - A warm, pink flesh color for ruddy areas in light: combines white, yellow ochre, cadmium red light and cerulean blue.
Halftones
Halftone1 - A cool halftone is especially helpful as a starting point in painting receding planes. Combines white, yellow ochre, cadmium red light and viridian.
Halftone2 - Often used where light and shadow areas meet, this warm, rich color combines white, yellow ochre, cadmium red light, chromium oxide green and cadmium orange.
Darks
Dark1 -  White has been added to the basic mixture of Dark 2.
Dark2 -  A rich, dark mixture of burnt sienna, viridian and cadmium orange
Neutrals
Neutral 3 - The light halftone, combines white, black and yellow ochre.
Neutral 5 - Precisely midway, between black and white. a combination of white, black and Yellow Ochre.
Neutral 7 - Positioned on a value scale of nine tones, this is a dark halftone, midway between value 5 and black - a warm, dark grey, combining white, Ivory Black, and Raw Sienna or Yellow Ochre.

Color - that mysterious thing! But color is wonderful, powerful, emotional... It's not that hard to have some power over color in your artwork, once you understand a few basics. But you will have to do some research - I can't do this all for you! First off, if you don't know the basics of color theory, I'm going to redirect you to some other sites to get caught up. It is beyond the scope of this site to teach you color theory from scratch. I want to focus on color for portraits. If you don't know what "primary colors" and "secondary colors" are, if you've never seen a "color wheel", then visit these excellent web sites:

Insanely Great Color Tutorial - Oh sure, your eyes might glaze over a bit looking at all the diagrams, but trust me, you need this. Don't be a wimp. Learn it. You can still have fun with drawing and portraits at the same time. But until you understand how color works, and how to mix colors, you are doomed as far as really being in control of your color work. So, LEARN IT.

Color Matters - An excellent site, all geared towards educating you about COLOR!

Check out color schemes". You'll learn what the terms "complimentary", "analogous", "warm" and "cool" mean in relation to color theory.

Now that you've gotten caught up with some of the basics of color, let me pontificate a bit about my views on color theory, and portraits.

Where do I start to explain color theory for portraits? Well, first off, I guess I shouldn't call it a "theory", it is just my flea-bitten opinion. But, all my opinions here are based on my understanding of color, and of course, my personal tastes and opinions too.

Here are some exciting color swatches. Hey! It looks like one of those makeup brochures, doesn't it?

Look at the three separate sections of colors on the left in the above illustration. The top rows are of a pinkish color, the middle rows are reddish pinks, and the bottom are brownish-peaches. Each row is just one color - it goes from pale to medium to darker. The second row of colors in each section shows a slightly more greyed-down (a little more neutral) version of the color swatches. I tried to keep them at the same brightness (or darkness) as the swatches directly above them. I just took out some of the colour’s intensity (vibrancy). They look more dull, and gray. Sometimes a duller version of the color is useful, for shadowed or subdued areas of a portrait.

These colors can be used as variations of flesh tones in portrait work. The lighter shades for lighter areas of the face, the darker shades for shadowed areas of the face. I will show you how this works.

The dark colors (purple, dark blue, brown, etc.) on the top right side can be good dark "accent" colors. (I use colors like these a lot in my portrait work, and you'll hear me mention them again.) And the colors in the black and gray boxes are a few of the same colors from the right side - just put against a black and grey background. They look different when they are up against a different background, don't they? Remember this when you paint or draw on coloured paper.

One of the easiest ways to approach a portrait is to do a "color study", where you limit your color "scheme". And you'd be just amazed at what wonderful, harmonious effects you can get by using just a few colors in a "color study". So let me show you a few examples...

Now, here's the same color study principle being used, but with a more purple color scheme (left), a brown-reddish color scheme (centre), and with more subdued umbers (right). They look just fine - they don't look overworked, or too drab. And yet only a FEW colors were actually used. Sometimes, simple is better, and less is more. Don't think that you have to use every color in your paint box for each painting. You don't.

I will mention right here, before I go any further, I am not a big fan of the use of straight black in color mixing. The straight black that was used in the previous color studies "doesn't count", because the black is limited to the underlying ink sketch. I wasn't trying to blend a black color in with the other colors.

In my opinion, a major problem with many newbie artworks is that they go crazy trying to mix the black color with all the other colors. So often when people mix black paint with other colors, all they end up doing is giving every other color a greyish, muddy tone. And then the whole painting looks grey and muddy: not very attractive.

I'm not saying that you can't get a good painting if you use the black tube of paint, though. I'm just saying that it can be a HUGE stumbling block for many artists, especially newbie artists. An artist needs to understand how to use the black paint properly. Helen Van Wyk's Color Mixing book will help teach you how to do that. Basically, you can't just mix black with everything that needs to be darker, and think it'll look OK. It probably won't. Other colors might need to be mixed in also. Or, sometimes the black paint isn't the appropriate choice for darkening certain colors.

Black is tricky. Personally, I have just gotten used to not using it, and I don't miss it. My first art teacher, (Shirlee Prescott Morgan) taught all her students not to use black. (Since her paintings had the most vibrant and beautiful color in them that I'd ever seen, I was inclined to follow her advice!)

Well, I'll conclude the "black paint" tangent now, and continue with the tutorial!

Now, here I've introduced a few more colors into these color studies. I use a "main" color (usually a peachy, brown or reddish color, for use in the flesh tones). I can also have a second "main" color, like the subdued blues in the backgrounds. Then there will be an "accent" color. An "accent" color could be the color used in the lips (brighter red) or the blues I used to add some richness to the shadow areas.

An accent color can be a dramatically different color from the main colors (usually a complimentary color) or they can just be a brighter, more intense version of the "main" colors. These accent colors are not used in abundance - that's why they are called "accent" colors! Just a dash here and there…

The color sketch on the left has dark tones - a mid-toned umber brown for the basic skin tone, a paler umber brown for the highlights, a brownish-purple and a cooler purple for the shadow, and background. A reddish-purple is used a little bit in the face's shadow as an "accent".

The portrait in the centre has peach for the light areas, reddish-peach for the mid-tones, a reddish brown for the shadows. I used a dusty blue and deeper blue as the background color, and also as the "accent" color. I used it to accent dark spots under the nose, the edge of the lips, and in the darkest shadows of the eyes. I also used a more saturated (brighter) blue as an "accent" in the background.

The portrait on the right is similar to the central portrait, except that it has "warmer" colors. "Warmer" means that there is more of a yellowish-reddish tint in the skin tones and shadows. I used a rich red color for an "accent" in the lips. And I used some squiggles of turquoise as a "accent" in the background. There are also some dashes of blue as accents on the face, in the shadow area, and in the mouth and eyes.

Ooh! I guess it's time for me to pontificate on the concept of warm and cool colors, isn't it? Well, off to the next page...

Yes, it's more exciting color swatches. But they are here to illustrate the concept of "warm" and "cool" colors.

Most of us know that red is a "warm" color, and blue is a "cool" color. But it's also true that all colors in all color families can be either "warm" or cool.

Look at the swatches above - yellow, blue, red, green, purple, orange. And yet there are different kinds of yellows, blues, reds, etc. In the illustration above, the colors on the left (the yellow on the left, the blue on the left etc.) are cool, and the colors on the right (the red on the right, the blue on the right, etc.) are warm. You can see a dramatic difference between the two yellows, oranges, blues, and purples, right? And you can feel the warmth and coolness from them, too.

So, there's such a thing as a "cool yellow" a "cool red" and a "warm blue". A "cool red" might lean more towards a magenta red, while a "warm blue" might lean more towards a turquoise blue. So, yellow isn't just yellow, and blue isn't blue anymore. There's more to it. You'll have to be thinking of this whenever you paint or use colors. And you'll definitely have to think about it when you buy paints. All blue tubes of paint are not created equal.

Can you tell which of the portraits above is "warm" and which is "cool"? It's very easy to see, isn't it? And, don't you think that each of these portraits has a different feel, exudes a different emotional response? That's the power of color.

In the portrait to the left, I had to find a "cool" flesh tone. And that's not so easy, because flesh tones are usually warmish - after all, peach is a warm color, right? But, I chose a "cool" flesh tone. More like a pale peachy burgundy. And the lips and shadow areas are a darker burgundy.

In the portrait to the right, it was quite easy to get a flesh tone. I did use a more subdued reddish brown in the shadow area, but it's still a warm brown.

And now here are some examples of an almost "monochromatic" color scheme. Each of these portraits uses a very limited set of colors. True "monochromatic" is just one color, mixed with white—like blue and white, etc. (A black & white photo is "monochromatic".) These portraits do have a touch of another color in there too, so they are not technically monochromatic—but they're close enough.

The portrait on the left is using a cool indigo blue. There's a pale blue, with a hint of a lilac color for the highlight areas. I created the portrait in Photoshop, where I scanned in a pencil sketch, and painted these colors over it.

The portrait on the left is using subdued brown. The flesh tones are a pale reddish brown, a darker brown in the shadow area, and there is a touch of a redder brown in the lips and in also the shadow area.

In these examples, I am showing that even very limited color schemes can look attractive, and be effective. There are a variety of fascinating "color schemes"— so try them all!

Summing it all up:

In this tutorial I am talking about "color schemes", and you are wondering how that affects you when you are trying to paint Aunt Martha, by looking at an old photo of her. You figure, all the colors are in the photo, I just need to copy them, right? It's not that simple. This color scheme thing still applies.

For instance, how do you interpret the colors of Aunt Martha? Do you use a cool red or a warm red for her shawl? Which color will help make the entire portrait "tie in" together? What color background will you use? Will you make the brown shadows in her face a warmish-reddish-brown, or a cool burgundy-brown? After all, brown isn't just brown anymore, just like yellow isn't yellow anymore.

Which color scheme should you use? You need to always be asking yourself this. Decide on a color scheme. Don't just lay down colors here and there, and think it'll all look harmonious automatically. You have to have a definite color "scheme"—even if you think you are just copying what you see. That's the difference between a painting with pleasing and harmonious colors, and a painting that has ugly or ineffective colors: One had a "color scheme", (even if it was unintentionally done by the artist) and one didn't. So, think and plan as you are laying down the paint.

To get some specific advice on colors to choose for portrait art, go to "Color Palette recommendations" page.

Shameless plug:

If you want to learn more about color, and how to understand how to make pleasing color combinations, check out these excellent books by one of my favorite artists, Helen Van Wyk. I find her painting style to be full of life and freshness, and her colors are just wonderful. I've loved her work since I was 14.

• Helen Van Wyk's favourite color recipes (Check out this book on Amazon.co.uk.)

• Color Mixing the Van Wyk Way - by Helen Van Wyk (Check out this book on Amazon.co.uk.)

Also, I discovered these very nice books by Faber Birren (and Itten) when I was in art school. (My color theory teacher recommended them to us.) It helped me understand why certain color schemes create certain "moods" or effects. They are good books on color.

• Color Perception in Art - by Faber Birren (Check out this book on Amazon.co.uk.)

• The Elements of Color - by Itten and Birren (Check out this book on Amazon.co.uk.)

• Creative Color - by Faber Birren (Check out this book on Amazon.co.uk.)

• Search for other books on Color Theory.

     Next: Portraits 2