Learning how to mix skin tones with acrylic paints can feel tricky at first, but with the right approach it becomes much easier. Skin isn’t just one color, it contains subtle variations and undertones that make each complexion unique. Understanding how to recognise and mix these undertones is the key to creating natural looking skin in your paintings.
I’ve created a video below showing you the exact techniques I use to perfectly match any skin tone with acrylics, so you can watch that to see the process step by step and follow along with the colour mixing.
I also have a full length version available on Patreon, where you can learn the process in even more detail and mix the paint along with me in real time. By joining you will also get instant access to my full library of full length art tutorials!
In this tutorial, I’ll show you a simple method for mixing realistic skin tones with acrylic paint using just five colours. This limited palette makes the process easier to understand and helps you see how small color adjustments can create a wide range of tones.
I’ll demonstrate how to mix darker skin tones and lighter skin tones, as well as all of the different undertones, so you can build a full range of colours for portraits or figure painting.
If you’re learning acrylic portrait painting or looking for an easy guide to mixing skin tones for beginners, this method will help you create natural colours using a simple palette!
To mix skin tones you will need:
- Acrylic paint – white, yellow oxide, red, ultramarine blue and brown
- Paint palette
- Palette knife or paintbrush to mix the paints
Step 1:
To begin mixing skin tones in acrylic paints, we will need to understand how to mix the different undertones that skin has. These are: yellow, red and blue undertones.
I explain this in more detail in the video above if you would like to see example images of skin with different undertones to get a better understanding of why this is so important.
Step 2:
Add all of your acrylic paint colors to your palette (white, yellow oxide, warm red, ultramarine blue and burnt umber). We’ll start by mixing darker skin tones and then I’ll show you how to lighten these later on in the tutorial.
To mix a dark skin tone with yellow undertones, we’ll need to mix the yellow, red and blue paints together. As this shade will have yellow undertones, we will need to add much more yellow than the other shades of paint.
Once you have mixed a shade that has yellow undertones, we can darken it using burnt umber. Add as much burnt umber as you need until the value of your paint color is accurate to the shade that you want.
Step 3:
To mix a skin tone with red undertones, we will use the same technique of mixing the yellow, red and blue paints together, but this time we will add more red to the mixture. As you can see the shade of paint has a much more red/pink shade to it. Then, to darken it, add burnt umber to the paint mixture as we did in the previous step.
Step 4:
To mix a dark skin tone with cool blue undertones, we will repeat the same technique. However, this time, we will add more blue paint to the mixture. Then, as before, add burnt umber, or dark brown paint, to darken the paint to your preferred shade.
Step 5:
To mix mid tone shades of skin with acrylic paint, all you need to do is repeat steps 1-4 to mix the shades with the correct undertones, but this time just add less or no burnt umber.
Step 6:
To mix lighter skin tones, repeat the same techniques of adding the yellow, red and blue paints together, emphasising one shade to get the correct undertone. But this time don’t add any burnt umber. Instead, we’ll be adding titanium white to lighten the paint. The lighter you want the shade to be, the more white you’ll need to add.
Adding white to paint mixture lightens the shade, but it also reduces the saturation, so be aware of this if you want more vibrant shades. When mixing skin tones, we often want natural, desaturated shades, so this shouldn’t be an issue, but it’s important to be aware of this when mixing any acrylic paint colors.
See this color mixing technique in action in my eye painting video below:
Mixing realistic skin tones with acrylic paint takes a little practice, but once you understand how to adjust undertones and value it becomes much easier to match the colours you see. Using a small palette of just five paints allows you to create a surprisingly wide range of natural looking skin tones, from dark to light complexions, simply by adjusting the ratios in your paint mixes.
Above you can see an example of an eye painting I created using these same skin tone mixing techniques. The surrounding skin was painted by studying the reference photo and matching the different undertones within the skin with my paint.
If you’d like to learn how to paint this eye step by step, I also have a full tutorial available on my Patreon, where I explain the entire process in detail, including the colour mixes I used and how I built up the layers of paint to create the finished painting.
