PORTRAIT EXERCISES
VIBRANT ACRYLICS
HASH’S TOP TIPS
FOR SUCCESS•USE PLENTY OF PAINT
Squeeze out more pigment
on your palette than you need.
There’s nothing worse than
running out and you can always
use it next time.
•DAB, DON’T STIR
When picking up paint with your
brush, avoid stirring as this will
corrupt colour.
•PICK UP INDIVIDUAL COLOURS
I tend to use several colours
at once on my brush, though
allowing a particular shade
to dominate.
•AVOID OVER-MIXING
When applying paint to your
support, over mixing will grind
the colour into a bland, flat
pigment. Holding back will allow
for subtle streaks or flecks of
interesting colour to remain.
•COVER PALETTE AFTER USE
This will avoid the acrylic drying
out. I buy tubs of acrylic and
anything not used during a
session is placed back in the
tubs or used as a base colour
for another painting.EXERCISE 2
AIM
If your portraits look a little colourless,
here’s an exercise which initially
replaces pastel tints for vibrant colour.
Choose a reference photo with some
contrasting tonal ranges and also
replace the idea of dark and light with
warm and cool colours. Warm colours
will be used in light areas and cool
colours used in darks areas. Some
earthy or neutrals can be used to
balance out some of the vibrancy and
white can be added too, but the bias
is mainly towards colour.MATERIALS
Use the same brushes and palette
of colours as the previous exercise.WHAT YOU WILL LEARN
By changing your focus from tone to
temperature, you will discover how
to introduce and integrate brighter
colours into your paintings.PROCESS
1
Apply a grey-blue base colour using
Primary Cyan, Burnt Sienna and
Titanium White. Once dry, use a damp
2-inch brush to block in a variety of
yellow mixes for the top of the forehead
as this attracts the warmest light.
Use Titanium White to create an
opaque range of yellows that will
dominate the base colour.
Add Burnt Sienna, reds and a touch
of Ultramarine Violet to create a
mid-range warm colour.2
Use more yellow for the bridge of
the nose and cheekbones. Treat
the mid-tone areas as dark reds, using
Pyrrole Red, Burnt Sienna and
Ultramarine Violet mixed with the
yellows you have left on the brush.
Initially these blocky marks will look
stark, but they will settle down as
more layers are applied.3
Block in the light area of the face
with a variety of angled strokes.
The same brush can be used
throughout with no cleaning and a
relatively generous amount of paint
added. A white, plastic mixing tray is
invaluable for testing colour and, when
acrylics are used in large quantities,
this can be used at later stages if the
painting is completed in one sitting.1
2
3