Category: General Tips

This mixing guide uses a limited palette of 6 Pre-tested Professional Oils to create a range of 66 skin tones and glazes for portrait and figure painting. Each swatch has a list of colors and the proportions needed to achieve the tone shown. This downloadable PDF offers basic guidance on determining tonal ranges for base skin tones, highlights, shadows, contouring and more. The following colors are needed to create your own skin tone mixing chart following this guide: Alizarin Crimson Golden (P002G), Burnt Umber (P024G), French Ultramarine (P076G), Raw Sienna (P171G), Superba White (P200G), and Yellow Ochre (P244G). Download: Skin Tone Guide

When a color is too bright and needs to be toned down, or you want to create a shadow, mix a small amount of the color opposite on the color wheel to “neutralize” the color. For example, add a small amount of ultramarine blue to cadmium orange to take a little of the fire out of the orange.

Don’t be tied to the description on the brush rack. If you need a short-handled brush for an acrylic painting, go ahead. If a watercolor brush is the perfect shape and size for a particular stroke you want in an oil painting, try it.

Hard-edged images can be achieved by marking off areas with masking tape.

For acrylics, a non-porous palette, such as a large sheet of glass or enamel butcher tray works better than the traditional wooden palette, which will absorb water from the paints. Wood, glass, and enamel palettes are all suitable for oil painting. Watercolor paint works best with a palette that contains multiple wells, these are usually plastic. Disposable paper palettes have a special coating that allows artists to mix colors and media without it sticking or absorbing, they work with most paints. When one is done painting, these palettes can be thrown away in accordance to your region’s disposal guidelines.

Raw canvas should be sized before priming by brushing with hide glue or acrylic matte medium. Prime the sized canvas with acrylic gesso or white lead primer.

When in a bind, the best way to create some beautiful earth tones when you have run out of your favorites is to combine Alizarin Crimson with yellows or greens to create a variety of similar earth tones.

Be sure to break all of the starch out of your brush before use. Bend the hairs back and forth to loosen the starch, then soak the brush in water and squeeze the hairs with your fingers starting at the ferrule and squeezing down towards the tip. This will eliminate any starch than can effect the performance of your brush.