"Baby Angeline" (watercolor on paper; 12" x 9")

"Baby Angeline"

The following is what we did in the fifth and sixth weeks of the winter term, 2022 in my "Watercolor Portraits" class (my online Zoom classes with the Art League School in Alexandria, VA).

First, I showed some pages from Burne Hogarth's Drawing the Human Head to illustrate the developmental stages of the human head.

"Child Head Development I"

"Child Head Development II"

"Child Head Development III"

Next, I talked about my skin tone palette. Cadmium red is the base for all races; I may add a little yellow (it doesn't seem to matter a great deal which yellow); I may shift to a cooler red (usually Sennelier Helios purple); I may add a little cobalt blue or permanent sap green. To suggest the sky reflections on the face, neck and shoulders, I may use very pale cobalt turquoise light (Winsor Newton) at the beginning. I don't use burnt sienna or burnt umber for dark-skinned subjects; they tend to muddy up complexions, which should be luminous no matter what.

Rose dore (Winsor Newton) and Naples yellow reddish (Schimincke) are my cheat colors, which I sometimes use. Some paints are very opaque or highly pigmented; cobalt turquoise light, Naples yellow reddish and, of course, cadmium red are such colors. Use lots of water! Always use lots of water!

"Skin Tone Swatches"

Since skin tones are generally reddish, the color red is the most important hue for painting portraits. I have many; you don't have to buy all of them. The chart below shows the warm red and cool reds. The color temperature is a relative thing, so the same color can look cool or warm depending on what's next to it. I also use lower-chroma colors such as perylene maroon and perylene violet. (I have another chart of violets!) I don't have time to mix all these colors (some can be mixed; others cannot) in the middle of washes because watercolor dries fast leaving blotchty patches.

"Warm and Cool Red Swatches"

Finally, I did a little demo of an infant portrait (just the most nerve-wrecking first layer). I will finish it in the next class. 

"Baby Angeline in Progress"

This week I finished "Baby Angeline" and showed you what colors I use for the skin tones. What's important in painting an infant is making sure the structure of the head is apparent and highlights are preserved!

For the face and neck, I painted the highlights with very pale cobalt turquoise light, then continued with pale cadmium red (sometimes with a little cad yellow pale). If the area felt cool, I used instead Sennelier Helios purple (I highly recommend this paint; I don't use permanent rose much). I also used cobalt blue and a little permanent sap green whenever I saw blue or green. Caucasian skin tones have a lot of blues and greens! For the neck, I also used perylene maroon and perylene violet, and madder brown. And of course many layers!

For the blue eyes, I used indigo blue (never use bright blue for blue eyes!)

For the dark lines or shapes in the face (such as nostrils, upper lash lines, the inside or corners of the mouth), use warm darks (perylene maroon, perylene violet, moonglow, the mixture of blues and crimson leaning warm, etc.). The upper lash lines may be cool. Never use paynes gray or indigo blue. And layer and instead of going too dark too fast!

For the hair, I used burnt sienna (Daniel Smith) and cad red (you can't tell where the hair begins and the forehead begins, so I painted accordingly).

As you can see in the finished image above, I used a lot of cool red in this portrait and reserved cad red for warm areas only. The name of the game is layering with pure colors and avoiding lines. Infants are all about softness, so avoid getting the skin tones dirty by overmixing (it applies to all ages and races!) and making too many lines.