The Little Peeps
By Alan Waterhouse
Adding Some Colour Part 1
Today I am going to add some colour to our Little Missy concentrating mainly on her face and the same with the Little Fella.
The one thing I always find tricky is getting the skin tone light enough because acrylic always dries darker and children are usually quite pale. This is a good time to mention that getting a pose with good lighting that creates some nice shadow helps define the shape of the face as well as creating a pleasing composition.
Mixing The Colours
I have seen a fair amount of blogs, books and YouTube vids that have had many different methods for mixing all types of skin tones using a variety of bases depending on the pigmentation like burnt sienna, yellow ochre and even premixed flesh tones but that because children have such smooth skin I defer to the basics. Cad Yellow, Cad Red, Cerulean Blue and for the tint, it’s white.
I mixed my tonal range for the skin and also added some purple on to my palette for the left cheek and around the left eye to help create the shadow area. A bit of colour on her right cheek/jaw bone gives her face a rounded plump look.
I blend the colours of the face together wet on the canvas or layer lightly with translucent layers depending what look I trying to achieve. I used a little raw umber for extra shadows and some charcoal black around her eyes.
I added some paint to her hair and her top.
For the Little Fella I used the same colours to create the skin tones. His lower face is a little dark at the moment but I will blend it with several layers to create a more subtle gradual transition when I come back to it tomorrow.
See you soon – Al
