MIXING FLESH TONES – WITH THANKS TO HONGNIAN ZHANG

MY PERSONAL COLOR MIXING EXERCISE - sketching a little 9" x 11" oil portrait once a week with a different color palette. This week’s challenge is dark-skinned Keisha, being mysterious. I am using the complementary system described in “The Yin/Yang of Painting” by Chinese Artist, Hongnian Zhang. Last week’s portrait was of a fair-skinned blond, but the same paints can work just as well with other skin tones.

Keisha is painted with the GREEN/RED complementary palette. It includes a wide range of paints from SAP GREEN, VIRIDIAN and RAW UMBER on the Green side to MAGENTA, CADMIUM RED and BURNT SIENNA on the RED side, plus WHITE and BLACK. The little abstract on the right side shows some of the colors in their pure form.