Painting Skin Tones in Watercolor and Mixed Media

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Employ the relationship between warm and cool colors to create lively portraits.

by Joanna Barnum

This article is an excerpt from a feature article in the Spring 2025 issue of Watercolor Artist. Read the full article—and discover other inspiring artist features and columns—in the print or digital edition.

Many artists find that depicting skin tones with watercolor can be intimidating. Portrait students often seek a magic formula, a specific set of colors they can rely on time and again. In reality, there’s no one “right” answer, at least not in terms of all-purpose color mixtures. There are, however, several concepts to keep in mind when interpreting flesh in watercolor.

Although I was exploring elements of abstraction and hypersaturated color in *Subconscious I* (watercolor and mixed media on paper, 12×9), I still used observation as the jumping-off point for these decisions.

Observation & Variation

Instead of relying on rote formulas, learning to observe is crucial. Treat every subject as an individual and look at it carefully, whether you’re observing it from a photo reference or life, as I did in Subconscious I. Some differences within the rainbow of humanity are more obvious while others are more subtle.

Lighting also influences how an individual appears. Artificial indoor light, the light from a window, outdoor light on a sunny day and outdoor light in the shade all imbue different characteristics. Even something like the color of a shirt someone is wearing can influence how the eye perceives color or can create reflected color onto the face.

If you have trouble seeing these differences, a good exercise is to photograph the same model under as many different lighting situations as possible, and then compare all the photos side by side. Of course, “selfies” are always a convenient option. You can also try photographing several different models in the same light to study the differences between their skin tones.

The *Poet Is a Funnel* (watercolor on paper, 30×22) is an example of how an extremely limited palette can still create a sense of realism. I used only Payne’s gray (a cool neutral), permanent alizarin crimson (a cool red) and pyrrol scarlet (a warm red) throughout the painting to bring an element of simplicity to a complex composition.

Warm vs. Cool

Although the warm tones within flesh are more obvious—browns, reds, pinks, yellows, and oranges—all skin has both warm and cool tones within it. The more subtle cool tones—blues, greens, and purples—come both from the coolness of shadows as well as the appearance of veins beneath the skin.

This relationship between warm and cool is actually more important to creating a sense of reality than is exact color matching to life or chasing a precise set of starting pigments. A very limited palette such as that used in The Poet Is a Funnel can work quite well as long as there are warm and cool relationships within it.

I used Indian yellow, quinacridone rose, and Winsor violet to mix the skin tones in *Early Spring* (watercolor on paper, 30×22). I carried these same colors into both the costuming and the flowers.

Organization

I like to break the portrait into distinct layers of temperature and value. This aids not only in creating volume, but it makes observing and interpreting color less overwhelming.

My personal approach to the portrait often involves an “underpainting” in a cool color. I put underpainting in quotes because this is not intended to be a full-value complete underpainting such as one might execute a grisaille in oil painting. This would be overwhelming and muddy in watercolor. Restraint is key. Starting with some subtle cool tones helps me get an initial sense of value structure via major shadows. It also helps neutralize them a bit as the painting progresses, and makes them feel as if they’re beneath the surface of the skin in places.

I then work light to dark in three or so distinct layers, each one observed and mixed separately. The lightest and middle value layers are mixtures of warm colors only, but aren’t necessarily identical to each other. Finally, the darkest values and details consist of mixtures of complementary color pairs. These mixtures are more neutral than the previous layers, but may shift warmer or cooler in different areas of the face.

Phthalo green and quinacridone rose produce a compelling complementary color pair. They create a unique shade of violet when mixed in a diluted concentration, which I used for the cool areas in my subject’s skin in *The Artist’s Book* (watercolor on paper, 22×15). Mixed in a strong concentration, they create a near black, which I used for the darkest values.

Mood & Style

How we see and process color as artists can be deeply personal. One artist may tend toward bolder color and another toward more neutral color. We may also choose to adjust the color within a piece to create a particular mood or to achieve overall color harmony within the painting as a whole.

These are all valid and effective choices that can still be grounded—and informed by—careful observation of each subject and the nuances and relationships they hold within them.

About the Artist

Joanna Barnum is an award-winning fine artist, illustrator, and instructor based in Maryland. She’s a Signature Member of the National Watercolor Society and American Watercolor Society. She earned a B.F.A. from the Maryland Institute College of Art and has been painting in watercolor for 20 years.

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