Color theory: Skin Tones

Zorn and Apelles Palettes

This specific palette has been popularized by Swedish artist Andres Zorn, and is primarily used for creating portraits; using colors: white, yellow ochre, vermillion (cadmium red is often a substitute), and ivory black. Similarly, the Apelles Palette is uses gypsum white, Melian white, yellow ochre, red ochre, lamp black, bone black, and blue-black. At it's core

Above we can see mixes of the Zorn Palette in it's tints and shades using two different brands of watercolors paints: Gansai Tambi and Sakura Koi, respectively.

In Theory

Let's take a look at how much of a difference in color combinations we are met with if we change just one hue. Instead of using a warm, earthly yellow (like yellow ochre); when we substitute a cool yellow (in this case this is lemon yellow), we see that instead of obtaining a darker shade of yellow, we get something that is more akin to a shade of green.

On the sides we did possible mixes that would prove useful for portraits where skin tones are especially prominent.

In Practice

We have aimed to create a variety of quick, 30-minute watercolor studies, that touch on a range of skin tones and ethnicities to show effectiveness of such a palette. Further proving that more often than not, a limited color palette should be preferred to avoid muddiness of colors, and without limiting the artist's ability to create appropriate color mixes.

Happy portraits,

Viktoria