A Palette Is Not a List of Colors. It Is a List of Jobs.
Five tubes, and the one job each of them does.
When skin tones go wrong, most painters add another tube to their skin tone palette. A flesh tint. A pink. One more brown. And the skin gets muddier, because the more tubes go into a mix, the less control you have over it.
Well, I have a drawer full of tubes, and the skin I paint normally comes from the same five. Each one has a job.
A palette is not a list of colors. It is a list of jobs.
This is the second episode of my Skin Tone Masterclass. In the video I show every job on the palette, one tube at a time, and then build my base skin recipe from the first tube to the last.
A skin tone palette is a list of jobs
Color has three dials. Hue - which family. Value - how light or dark. Chroma - how intense, or how gray.
Skin makes the first one easy for you. Every skin tone that has ever been measured sits in one narrow slice of the color wheel. I explained that in the first episode.
So you don't need a tube for every skin. You need a tube for every job. And there are four of them:
Set the family.
Quiet it down.
Take it darker.
Bring it up.
Five tubes, and every one of them has a job.
Job 1: the family - yellow ochre and vermilion
Yellow ochre, a warm earth, and vermilion, a red. The ochre goes down first, then the red goes into it.
That is the family skin lives in. A little more ochre and it leans golden. A little more red and it leans rosy. These are the two I reach for whenever skin needs warmth, and that is the only real choice of color on this palette. Everything after it is placed.
Now look at the mix. It is far too strong to be skin. Good. It is supposed to be. The other three tubes are there to quiet it and to place it.
Two tubes set the family. After that, you stop choosing colors and you start placing them.
Job 2: quiet it down - unbleached titanium
Unbleached titanium is an off-white, warm and opaque. Watch what it does to the family: it goes lighter, and it stops shouting. This is the tube I use to kill the chroma.
Notice the order. The off-white goes in before any pure white. It quiets the color while it lifts it.
Job 3: take it darker - burnt umber
This is the tube that does the heavy lifting. Burnt umber.
Take the quiet pile and split it again, with umber into one half. The value goes down, the intensity goes down with it, and it still reads as skin. Darker. Not a different color.
So there are two quiet tubes on this palette. The off-white quiets a color going up. The umber quiets it going down.
Why not black?
It is the question everyone asks. Put black into the same pile and it goes down too, but to my eye it dirties the mix, and black is too blue for skin. The umber keeps the warmth.
There is no black on my palette. When the skin has to go darker, an earth takes it there. I use burnt umber in every painting.
You darken skin with an earth, not with black.
Job 4: bring it up - lead white
Lead white is a different tube from the off-white, and here is why. Take one mix and make two piles. More off-white into one, lead white into the other, both brought to the same value, as close as my eye can place it.
Now look at the color. The off-white pile went quiet. The lead white pile is just as light, and it kept its color. So when a mix has gone too far and needs its life back, this is the white I go lighter with.
I love lead white. It is gentle, it never takes over a mix. It is also toxic, so treat it with respect. If you would rather not use it, titanium white lifts the value too, but it is a much stronger white, so it flattens the color faster.
And one warning. White is fake light. There is no pure white in nature, and certainly not on a face.
One white quiets the color and the other one keeps it. So know which one is on your knife.
The visitor - and when five are not enough
One more tube visits: ultramarine blue. It is not one of the five. It comes in at the very end, and only sometimes. When a mix is too warm, a touch of blue cools it and quiets it a little further. Look at how little that touch is. Too much, and it is not skin anymore.
Cooling is a touch at the end, not a tube at the start.
Now, I know someone is typing: "Uri, five tubes cannot be enough for every face." And I will be straight with you. Every palette in the world needs to be a bit flexible. A shadow that goes cold gets Indian red. Reddish skin calls for burnt sienna. And when a red skin needs quieting, I mix a green from yellow ochre and black, and a little of that green goes in. The black is only an ingredient in that green. I never paint a dark with it.
Sometimes the palette needs adjusting a little. The base stays the same.
The base recipe, first tube to last
Here is the recipe from the five, in order:
Yellow ochre and vermilion, mixed. That is the family.
Unbleached titanium, to kill the chroma.
Burnt umber, mixed in.
It has gone a bit too quiet, so lead white brings it back. That is my base.
The highlight is the same mix and more white. The shadow is the same mix and more burnt umber - darker, and still warm. On some faces I add a little more red. Three tones, one pile.
And a darker skin? The same pile and more umber. Darker. Not a different color.
Five tubes and one visitor.
What to do with this
Here is the one thing to take away. A palette is not a list of colors. It is a list of jobs. Ochre and vermilion set the family. The off-white quiets it. Umber takes it down, lead white brings it up. And blue, when it visits, cools it.
So the next time a skin tone goes wrong, don't reach for a new tube first. Ask which job is failing: the family, quieting it, taking it darker, or bringing it up. Then reach for the tube that does that job.
I hope this helped. Which tube do you reach for when the skin tone goes wrong? Tell me in the comments under the video, and I will tell you which job it is trying to do. The next episode is layers: how a mix on the palette becomes skin on the canvas. Of course you are welcome to subscribe to the channel so it finds you.
Visit the Color Mixing Book Library. The recipes behind my own portraits and the old masters' faces, written down recipe by recipe. See the library
Additional topics worth reading:
Credits: skin measurements - Wang et al., Color and Imaging Conference, 2015.
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