Mixing recipe
How to mix medium skin tone
Target
#C68B64
Recipe mixes to #C08C69
A medium skin tone is mostly Yellow Ochre. The white lifts it to the right value, the Cadmium Red puts the blood back in, and the single part of Burnt Umber takes the orange edge off so it reads as skin rather than terracotta.
The recipe
Step by step
Build the pile from the biggest, lightest component and work toward the strongest tinter. Check the pile against each swatch before moving on.
- Start with 6 parts Yellow Ochrepile #B8813F
- Work in 4 parts Titanium Whitepile #DDAE71
- Work in 1 part Cadmium Redpile #DB976D
- Work in 1 part Burnt Umberpile #C08C69
A simpler mix
Leaving out the Burnt Umber and using less white gives a brighter, more orange version, about two ΔE further from the target. It works for the lit side of a face in warm light. Keep the four-paint mix for the shadow side and for anywhere the color has to sit quietly next to a highlight.
What goes wrong
The red is the part to go slowly on. One part in twelve is already enough, and another half part turns the whole pile toward sunburn. Too much white makes it chalky rather than lighter; if the mix looks pale and dead, add ochre back before adding more white. Burnt Umber mixed in heavily turns the ochre to mud, so stop once the orange has gone.
Related colors
Results vary with brand, lighting and medium. Acrylic dries a touch darker than it looks wet. Treat this as a mixing aid, not a lab instrument: it tells you which tubes to reach for and roughly in what proportion. Fine-tune the last stretch by eye.