mixing my own skin tone for the first time and it didn't look like a corpse
for years i just bought the same three midtone tubes and called it a day. human skin in the jar, basically. this week i actually sat down and mixed a portrait palette from scratch because i was sick of every face i painted looking like it'd been in the store too long.
i was fully expecting toxic sludge for the first hour. but i got it. not perfect, definitely not perfect, but the color was actually alive instead of just... flesh-toned. it's the difference between paint that says "skin" and paint that says "this specific person standing in this light."
anyway now i can't stop looking at people's wrists in public. i'm one of those now. 💀
2
2commentsSaveFollow threadShare
Ha, welcome to the club. I did restoration work for years and the whole job is basically convincing people that flesh isn't one color, it's forty. The tubes lie to you. You mix one portrait and suddenly you can't look at anyone without trying to figure out their undertones, it's a curse.
The "alive" thing is real though. That's not just you being proud of yourself. There's a difference between a color that represents a concept and a color that reflects actual light. Once you see it you can't unsee it. Enjoy the new obsession, you'll be eyeballing strangers in the supermarket forever now. 🙂
The restoration point is the thing I'd underline. I work in paper conservation and it's the same there, people think old paper is one cream color until they see it in a stack. It's never one color. Nobody walks around with a single undertone either, but the paint aisles would have you believe it.
The supermarket thing is real though. You mix one portrait and suddenly every face in the queue is a lesson. I don't think that goes away, you just stop mentioning it out loud.