In this video from pastel portraitist Alain Picard, you’ll learn how to paint six different skin tones using pastels. You’ll discover how to use color charts and concepts of hue, shade and tone to set up a pastel palette in a variety of colors. Then, follow along with Alain to create a chart for each skin tone, ranging from pale skin to dark brown or black, containing nine different shades in a range of cool, neutral and warm. On the way, you’ll also learn how to apply the chart to your own portrait subjects so that creating realistic skin tones in pastel becomes easy. You’ll be ready to create your own skin charts and start drawing your friends in no time!
What you’ll get from this workshop:
Information on the color chart, including value, tones and shades
Easy, fun instruction from an award-winning portrait artist
How to identify and divide the face into different zones: warm, neutral and cool
How to match value and tone to a photograph
Six different pastel skin tone charts based on a variety of skin types
How lighting and background colors affect the color reflected in the skin
How to apply the lessons and tools Alain uses to identify color in your own portrait subjects and to create your own skin charts
Preview Painting Skin Tones in Pastel with Alain Picard to learn his approach to matching realistic skin tones for a variety of skin colors. First, you’ll be introduced to the basics of color, where Alain creates a color wheel in pastel to show how different hues and tones create the colors that can be found in various skin types. Then, catch a glimpse of two different skin types to be surprised by the unusual range of colors found in skin.
Painting Skin Tones in Pastel with Alain Picard
MATERIALS
Pastels
A variety of hard and soft pastels in assorted colors and sizes
Surface
Le Carte sanded pastel card (warm brown)
Other
Vine charcoal
Paper towels
Skewer
Reviews
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Alex 9/7/2018
Very informative.
Christine 4/30/2018
Terry 2/22/2018
Candy 2/11/2018
I've never taken a class like this one. The teacher goes through all six skin tones and works through which pastel colors are best used in each type of tone. He is an excellent teacher.
Barbara 6/12/2017
Excellent breakdown of skin type colors. I appreciated him taking several colors and showing why he picked one over the other.
I would like to know who takes his reference photos... the poses of the subjects are so natural, the clarity so great, so many of the typical photograph problems already solved. It clearly makes painting easier to have great references....could he do a video on taking photos to use as references? ... that would be great!!
Nancy 4/11/2017
I saw Alain's article in Pastel Journal but never really understood how he matched the skin tones to his reference. This was very interesting!
Susan 2/25/2017
Loredana 10/4/2016
Very informative!
KATHERINE 2/26/2015
Excellent information and well delivered. I enjoyed watching Alain's thought process as he evaluated and selected colors. The relativity of value and temperature were well explained and was very helpful. Thank you
Pearl 9/18/2014
I like Alain painterly style and the instructions and demonstration are very clear and engaging. Will need to repeat watching this video to get better grip on the skin tones which is a complex subject, and Alain covered it well.
Walter 5/29/2014
This is a must see for portraits using pastels
Krista 5/4/2014
This was very helpful for my needs. I tend to just start slapping color on and then, sometimes to my horror
finding out it doesn't work at all. I'm going to try his method of being.......organized ....ahead of time for a
change.
Thank you, Alain
Xuliana 5/4/2014
excellent video!!!!
Wanda 5/2/2014
What a fantastic demonstration of the variety of colors that one can see in skin tones and in different skin types (and under different light conditions) without presenting a single, common "recipe" for painting skin tones. Painting realistic skin tones is a challenge for any of us in any medium, but doing this in pastel--trying to match the nuances of the variety of colors we see light and shadow, and stick by stick in pastel--is a huge challenge! Picard is a master at seeing and matching the beautiful variety and nuances of color that exist in any individual live model or photo reference, and relating the colors he sees to each other (and in context) by their value and color temperature (warm, neutral, cool). Then, he paints portraits in such a beautiful, painterly way (other videos). So, although he presents some general guidelines for painting six different skin types and the three "color zones" of the head in all of us humans, it's still easy to see why you still need to take into consideration the particular lighting and context of the model you're painting, and his/her unique skin color tones in that context. Great video!
Dorothea 1/19/2014
The video kept breaking up and repeating stuff. Could not get through it as it took forever.
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