Painting Tutorial: 101 (Part 2)

The following is a tutorial that I have written after being encouraged by other members on the forums. It should give you a good idea of just how easy painting can be to add to your drawings and it will hopefully convince you to give the painting a try.

I have divided this tutorial into two parts. In the previous blog, I listed out all the materials needed to get started on your painting. In this blog, I shall cover the process.

This tutorial is my first attempt at teaching you about oil painting, so I hope you all enjoy it! Well, here we go…

1: Find a good reference photo that inspires you and something that fits within your skill level.  A good photo will give you an idea of what colors to use and how to portray the light/values in your painting. It’s always best to work from life, but if you can’t find a place that does live model sessions then just look through some photos until you find one that speaks to you! If it’s your first time painting then try using photos with models doing something simple like standing still or walking across an open area.

2: Do some basic sketching on your board with pencils (HB & 2B)  to map out the drawing before painting. You won’t see it when you’re done but it’ll make things easier for later steps, trust me…

3: Draw over your sketch lines with your preferred graphite pencil  (I use .3mm lead holders). If you don’t have a preference…STOP RIGHT NOW AND GO BUY ONE!! Here are some examples of different types of graphite pencils by Faber-Castell, Derwent, and Prismacolor. You can use any kind that you like but I suggest starting with soft lead (HB) because it’s the most common in my experience. Also, make sure to get mechanical pencils too!

4: Erase all of your sketch marks. Now is also a good time to start blocking out light/shadows on your subject so they are easier to read when painting later. Just scribble quick messy circles where you want the shadows to be and also shade some areas where you want the light to fall. Again, this isn’t something your audience will see when looking at your finished artwork, but it’ll make sure that everything is easy to read when painting.

5: Paint in all of your darks with a 1″ flat brush. Make sure that you leave your lights for later so they don’t get covered up! Also…mixing paint on your palette with a palette knife instead of dirtying your brush every time will save you TONS of time so try not to do it too much!

6: I’d suggest using pan-paint if you’re just starting out because it’s easier than tubes (and more versatile).  Pans are premade colors that you mix on your palette with water instead of having to squeeze the paint out of a tube. I’ll go into more detail about this later, but for now just mix your first layer of skin tones onto your palette.

7: Mix some red-orange onto your palette until you get an orange color similar to this. Brush it all over the darks in your painting (most likely on his/her shirt). Then mix some more red-orange and thinly brush it over the same area so you get a nice gradient between dark and light color. This is one way of blending or transitioning between values without using any white! Remember…you do NOT need white for highlights yet because we’re still working on our darkest darks.

8: Do the same thing with a green color and dab this onto his/her shirt too. I suggest using a slightly darker value of green because it’ll create more contrast when you do the next step…

9: Mix some blue into your skin tone layer that you created earlier so you can darken down the greens on his/her shirt. The higher value of blue should make them pop out against the orange background! This is where we get to use white for highlights, but don’t add ANY yet!! You have to wait until the end because if you add too much white too early then your painting will look dirty and messy no matter how hard you try to fix it later on. It’s all about controlling your values and we’re just getting started so don’t rush it.

10: Do the same thing with a dark red to intensify his/her bruises! If you’ve never painted before then I suggest using pan-colors because they’re way more versatile than regular paints and easier to control during your first few paintings. You can still do this step with tubes but start experimenting on some scrap paper wood or something first so you get an idea of what colors look like mixed together because that’s really all paint is…just colors mixed together. Pan-paint is great for practising value & color mixing because it’s much cheaper, comes in a wide range of colors, and it has a built-in 2 surface (the lid). This means you don’t have to dirty a paintbrush every time you want to switch colors, which means less cleanup and more painting. You can also use a dry brush technique if you wanted to…just load a little bit of the darker value onto your brush and lightly touch it onto your subject. This method is great for painting things like hair or fur! Just make sure not to scrub too hard because once the paint seeps into the paper then there’s no going back!

11: Now that we’ve blocked in all of our darks & lights, let’s start focusing on those midtones!! Your canvas should now look something like this from far away. I purposely made my darks dark grey instead of black so they’d blend better with my light grey background. This is a pretty standard rule of thumb when it comes to painting…the darker the value, the closer it appears to the viewer because that’s just how our eyes work! This will give us a huge advantage later on when we start adding shadows and midtones, so keep this in mind every time you’re painting your subject.

12: Start mixing some skin tones onto your palette until you get something similar to what I have going on here. Use pan-paint or tubes no matter what medium you’re using because there’s no such thing as too many colors!! You can never have enough options for minor details like these so always mix a lot more than you need at one time because even if you don’t use it all, you’ll still learn something new. For example…I didn’t realize pink was a lighter tone of red until I mixed it up! Not very exciting stuff here but this is where most beginners make mistakes!! Make sure you have your darks set first before adding any lights or midtones because they can easily mix into one another if they’re on the same layer (it’s just how watercolor works). Then carefully place them onto your subject according to what looks right to your eye.

13: Our lightest light value should be under our darkest dark value, regardless of whether we’re talking about skin tones or whatever else is in your painting. This helps us achieve balance and contrast between different elements so it’s smart to follow this rule of thumb if you want your painting to look good. Remember our blue jeans from step 1? Yeah well, now they’re green & grey instead because this is just how watercolor works!! This is why it’s so important to mix enough colors ahead of time so you don’t wind up with unexpected results like that because these are the things that can really break your flow during a painting session…not to mention it’s much harder to fix mistakes after you apply paint onto watercolor paper!

14: It seems like I got too excited about mixing colors because my midtones turned out way too dark!! No biggie though, we can easily fix this issue by adding some lighter tones onto our palette and getting rid of all those ugly dark squiggles. Remember how I told you be careful not to mix too many colors onto your palette? Well, this is what I was talking about!! It’s very easy to over-think things when you’re trying to paint something, which can lead to a whole bunch of unnecessary mistakes…so try not to think too much! Always take a step back from time to time and look at your subject from a distance because that’s the best way to see what needs fixing.

15: There!! Much better now that we’ve balanced out all those ugly dark midtones with lighter ones. It might seem very simple in theory but it actually takes a lot of practice before you get the hang of it so don’t expect perfect results every time you mix up your colors. The point of this tutorial is to show you the basics of what goes into painting skin tones & other light sources, but I can’t stress it enough…practice makes perfect!!

16: Now that we’ve built up all those midtones, let’s start adding some darks! Pick out any areas around your subject where there are shadows or dark spots and mix up your colors accordingly so they blend in nicely with the rest of your painting. As you can see here on my model’s left arm, I started with a darker dark value first then added lighter ones over the top until I got something close to what I was looking for. You don’t always have to use black paint as your darkest value, sometimes just creates too much contrast & makes your subject look unrealistic. A medium or dark grey can be a more subtle alternative if you’re going for that kind of style.

17: Use a light value of paint to add some highlight areas too, anything where the light is hitting the skin on an angle. For example, our model has quite a bit of blemish from her acne scars but they don’t show up as much when there’s no direct sunlight hitting them because they turn into less noticeable shadows instead. I’m not saying it looks bad without highlights…I’m just trying to make things look more believable here!! It’s important to add these details especially since she’ll be wearing something like this (which will cast its own shadows).

18: Time for another color mix! Our reds and yellows are starting to get a bit dark so we need another batch of lighter tones to mix in with it all. The more colors you add to your palette, the easier it’ll be to create any combination of lights & darks. Even just one color can be broken down into different values though so don’t worry if things look complicated at first glance because that’s pretty normal!! If I were painting myself then I’d probably give myself some extra rosy cheeks for this cheerful pose, but since she already has them then there’s no need for me to add my own haha.

19: Yay, looks like everything’s coming together nicely now! With these mixes in place, our subject should have enough color & light on her to stand out against the background. It’s also the perfect time to add some more shading onto her clothes and hair, but feel free to adjust their colors or patterns if you like!! I was originally going to draw paisley swirls all over her shirt but decided against it because it would make our painting look too busy…and now that she has a bunch of different colors in the background, it wouldn’t really fit anymore.

20: Another color mix! This one might end up being your darkest dark for your subject’s skin tone since we’ve already used black once before. Some people skip this step entirely & go straight from the middle tones right into highlights instead, but personally, I think having at least one extra value to work with makes things look more complicated and interesting. Besides, the shadows around her hairline would be pretty noticeable if we didn’t add any dark values there to balance it all out!

21: Whoa, I’m starting to run out of room on my canvas so let’s call this one finished for now! You don’t always have to paint in a crisscrossing pattern though…most artists will just do long strokes from top to bottom or left to right and leave it at that. The key is consistency when you’re picking up your paints & then muting them down into lighter tones by adding some white.

I was tempted to add a few more darks into the background but decided against it because that would’ve made our subject blend in too much with the scenery.

Allow your painting to dry overnight and voila! You’re done!! I hope you enjoyed this tutorial & found it helpful!

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That’s all for now, ciao!