Work from a Photograph

• If you're an inexperienced painter or have never painted human subjects before, work from a photograph so you can compare the flesh toned paint to the flesh tones in the photograph. This will be easier than painting from real life because you can hold the paintbrush or painted scrap of canvas up to the edge of the photograph to compare.
  
  

Mix a Lot of Flesh Tone, Keep A Covered Palette

• Oil paint dries very slowly. The advantage in this case is that you can mix a lot of flesh tone and not worry that the paint will go to waste. Some people take a lot of time trying to find just the right flesh tone, so rather than mixing a little and doing it over and over again, you can mix a lot that will last you a several days or even weeks. Keep your palette covered. As it dries, the paint might develop a skin on top--that can be punctured or scraped off so you can access the fresh underneath.
  
  

Types of Paint Color

• Darker skin tones will use more browns (oil color paints like burnt sienna and raw umber), reds (light red or cadmium red), blues (phthalo blue, ultramarine blue) and yellows (cadmium yellow), and very little white. Lighter skin tones will use more reds, yellows, white and brown, and very little blue. Do not make shadows on flesh tones with black paint. Black paint will muddy the color of the paint and will often give a purple-ish cast to the paint, as if your subject was bruised. The exact proportions of these paints will vary from subject to subject. You'll have to experiment to find the right mixture for you and your subject.
  
  

Blending Highlights And Shadows

• Because of the slow drying time, it's easy to mix colors on the canvas during the painting process, instead of mixing them on the palette. This means you can add highlights and shadows to the flesh tone on the canvas, and mix these new layers with the base layers by simply feathering the paints with a dry brush. This will create more complex color relationships on the painting, adding richness to your portrait.