First portfolios

Visual Arts 31 May 2021 Skin Tone Summative

In this artwork I have painted a portrait of an umber-dark skinned woman with thick afro hair. I did so with the use of opaque acrylics and several techniques to contribute to the naturalism and realism I was aiming to convey. Firstly, for this painting I used a strong opacity of a cool colored brown for her skin tone and several tonal ranges of the same hue to effectively portray the shades and highlights in her face. Yet despite the tints and tones of her skin color I

preferred to have a limited palette and did not exceed the use of three colors to ensure that the focus remains on the woman’s characteristics rather than the vibrance of the painting. In these four colors that I chose to include, the only apparent utilization of complementary colors can be seen in the red lips and the bright green background that creates a small but obvious contrast.

Moreover, the densely toned features, her thick and extensive hair, and the large proportion of dark colors in my painting give it a sfumato sensation and provide a shaded and mysterious contribution to my earthy portrait. Finally, I used scumbling techniques for her rosy cheeks, her darker tones, the tints near her eyes, and especially in the tones of her golden necklace.

For this artwork I firstly sketched the basic characteristics of an olive-brown colored woman and proceeded by illustrating it with the use of colored pencils. In this case I used an extensive palette with a wider range of warm colors and a greater tonal range due to the unusual viewpoint and light of the image I was inspired by. The majority of the artwork was drawn with limited opacity; however, I was sure to use a greatly opaque lemon yellow for her clothing to extend the intensity of my artwork and catch the viewers attention with a vibrant hue. I used maroon and many other different tones of skin color for the majority of her face, but also tints to show where the light hit through a scumbling technique. The rest of my drawing was done with more playful, directional, and gestural lines to highlight certain features and to create a less realistic but more abstract artwork.