Why do My Skin Tones Look Lifeless? Plus 25 Solutions to Other Portrait Painting Peeves

Book excerpt: Learn how to mix skin colours, paint hair and techniques for painting eyes in this oil painting book. Portrait painting is often seen as the last frontier of representational art as every detail has huge consequences upon whether a portrait looks like the person depicted. The beginner need not venture far before encountering a possible minefield of problems. Common issues might be why a portrait painting looks childish, eyes look like marbles, hair looks like a wig or noses appear skewed. Such frustrations and many others might be encountered by professional and amateur portraitists alike, whether it is to capture the highlights in eyes or to make skin tones appear three-dimensional. It is all part of learning to paint. If the issue persists, however, the problem is likely to become a creative block in portraiture. This is where this book comes in. Each issue is tackled candidly and in-depth, consisting of a description of the issue concerned, suggested solutions via the art materials required and painting exercises. In total, 26 “peeves” associated with portraiture are tackled within this book. A myriad of other matters relating to portraiture are explained, including suggested pigments to use for ethnic subjects, painting from life, portrait photography and more – in total, with countless colour images. Sections I and II within the after matter of this book provides step-by-step demonstrations for first-time explorers of skin tones. Some of the images within this book can be found in my other Oil Painting Medic Book, Portrait Painting in Oil: Ten Step by Step Guides from Old Masters. Other images have been sourced from my fine art paintings and commissions. My other book on portraiture, Portrait Painting in Oil 10 Step by Step Guides offers in-progress demos on painting old master subjects, such as that from Botticelli, Rossetti, Vermeer, Gauguin and more. Dimensions of large edition: 10x8in and 84 pages. The author has a BA Hons Degree in Fine Art from London as well as a PCET teaching qualification from Warwick.