The fine art of painting skin and hair

by Tissa Hewavitarane

One of the many problems the portrait painter has to face is dealing with what are virtually two opposites in terms of texture. The bark of a tree or the fur of an animal is a relatively uniform texture, but human skin is entirely different from human hair, giving the artist the task of finding the technique that can equally express them.

If you were to use the meticulous dry brush water colour technique for the hair and a fluid wet-in-wet for the face, the effect would be bizarre and unpleasing though each of these techniques would be perfectly appropriate in the context.

The varying textures of skin and hair have always presented a challenge artists and anyone interested in portrait painting will need to consider.

For instance, you do not give the impression of the soft skin of a child suggesting the rougher, more lined skin of a middle-aged person or the intricacy of frizzy unruly hair. Different drawing materials can also be useful in showing textured hair. When adding tone to your drawing use the pencil experimentally to try out different effects.

Elusive

Of all the textures the skin is the most subtle and elusive. Painting it to look alive is one of the greatest challenges to the painter's skill. The most dramatic changes in the texture of skin are wrought by time. The skin of a baby or a young child is soft and ‘peachy’ unlike that of an old person.

But this is not all. The texture also varies according to the part of the body in an adult's hands and faces constantly exposed to the air. They are nearly always rougher than the torso, covered by the protective layer of clothing for most of the time.

The skin stretched tightly over a bone, such as the nose or forehead, is smoother and more reflective than the layer of flesh and fat below. These are just some of the differences you can readily observe in any person.

When you are painting you need to be aware of the colours of the flesh because it can provide important clues about the texture. Older skin is usually darker in colour than that of a young person. An other important clue, however is the quality of the highlights.

Highlights

The highlights will usually be brighter on drier “dustier” skins, where it will be more diffused. When painting, look out for these highpoints of light as they are extremely important indicators of form as well as texture. They usually occur at corners or where a plane changes direction. For example, on the forehead where the two planes of the head meet, or the top of the lip, where the flesh of the lips begin to turn.

There is such a range of texture and styles seen on the human head that it is impossible to explain the changes about them, but these are some points.

When you are painting the most important factor to ensure is that you relate the hair to the head itself. This sounds obvious, but if your subject has an elaborate hairstyle it is only too easy to become so involved in the intricacies of curls and waves that you forget about the shape of the skull beneath and the way the hair relates to the face.

Brush strokes

Look out for the weight of the hair, as this is important in giving shape to the style, even in the case of short hair. All hair stylists know that thick heavy hair holds its shape better than thin, wispy hair and it is even easier for artists to paint, as you can simplify the forms using long sweeping brush strokes.

Thin frizzy or ‘flyaway’ hair is trickier because it does not always follow the shape of the head precisely, and is in general more demanding in terms of technique.

For a painter the most important characteristic of all is to look out for the sheen of the hair, the highlight giving the vital textural clues. Dark oily hair will have very pronounced highlights, thick dry hair diffused ones and thin dry or frizzy hair will bear almost no recognisable highlights.

Strands of hair

In painting and drawing fine strands of hair is to use a technique of impressing thin lines into the paper with a sharp pointed brush. This method requires a lot of practice and a little planning ahead to ensure that the lines will be in the right relationship to the rest of the drawing, and the results can make it worthwhile.

Use a fairly thick drawing paper and begin the drawing by impressing those strands of hair you want to reserve as white with a fine metal point such as a nail not so sharp that it will cut the paper.

Although many successful portrait painters use watercolour. It is not the easiest medium to handle for a subject. It is difficult in any case for the beginner in watercolour.

He is advised to practise before embarking on a human subject. Notice the painting done here. The mass of the hair is painted loosely using the wet-in-wet technique with crisper wet-on-dry brush strokes over the forehead.