Blending skin tones in oil
 

I'm new to the Forum, and also struggling with my first portrait in oils in a long time. I've done dozens in pastel in the last three years. My subject is a lovely young girl with blooms in her cheeks. I have a lot of questions I could throw out, but perhaps I've first just ask for any and all feedback. I do admit to finding it a lot harder to delicately blend from highlights to shadows in the skintones in oil than in pastel. I've actually given in to the temptation to blend a bit with my fingertip! Any special tips here? Incidentally, the roughness on the right edge of her cheek is due to the luster of the medium-laden paint, which is still wet.....awaiting your suggestions. Not sure if I can send the photo I'm working from on the same post. If not, I'll try to follow with it.
My gratitude in advance!

Hi Ruth,

I usually use fan sable brushes to blend. I have also use synthetic nylon brushes and they do a gret job too. A couple things to remember though when blending oil:

1. The paint being blended has to be lean enough. Too much oil or medium will cause the paint pigments to run around.

2. Make sure the brush used for blending is dry or has minimal oil, medium or turps in it.

3. Clean the blending brush between blends.

I hope this will help you. :)
Good luck.

Thank you!
 

I appreciate your suggestions so much, Josef! Many thanks. I will run out and buy a fan sable and some nylon brushes. When you say the brush needs to be dry, yet the paint lean, I'm a bit lost. Right now my surface is still semi-wet (yesterday tacky). Do I have to wait until it's dry to do more blending? How can the paint be lean yet have minimal turps or medium in it???

Hi Ruth,

Lean paints means that they have minimal binders (or oil). It is paint straight out of the tube.

The more you add medium, the more washy it becomes (like watercolor) and it is harder to blend. Same thing happens if you add too much turps to the paint.

And the brush has to be dry means that there is more turps. You can try to experiement with this and you will see the difference. It will have a bleeding effect if you try to do it with a brush with turps in it.

And if the paint is tacky, its best to let it dry completely. If you try to blend, you might take off chunks of paint.

Hope I am helping than confusing you.

Regards,

Ruth, I think everyone has a different technique re blending skin tones. I either keep mixing slightly lighter tones, adding them sequentially onto the canvas to achieve a smooth transition, or, if the painting's dry enough, I'll mix whatever color I need for the effect I'm after and, with a natural bristle brush, lightly apply it on the canvas, allowing the texture of the linen or cloth to pick up however much pigment I want to see there. It's a good way to do subtle blending. With your painting I'd probably mix some mid-range skin color and brush it over the darker edges of the cheeks to smooth them in. Incidentally, I rarely use any medium at all, even with this method.

One other thing: the shoulders and arms look rather large for the age child you're painting. If you look at your reference photo you'll see that the shoulders are slighter than you have them, and the arms would be correspondingly smaller and shorter, with the elbow joint up higher. Otherwise your painting's coming along really well. Nice likeness and nice painterly feeling to it!

Josef, it's working!
 

I immediately tried some of your suggestions and feel I made some real progress! Her cheeks and skin look much better blended now. Thanks for elaborating more on the meaning of lean, etc., too. I think I'm getting close to finishing this one now! Thanks again.
Ruth

Thank you!
 

Hi Leslie, thanks so much for your input! I worked more on the painting yesterday before reading your response, and one of the things I did was make the arms narrower! I may also crop the painting so it's more like the photo I sent. It's easy, as I painted on canvas board. I will definitely try to follow some of your technique advice as well. THANKS~~~! :)