When under painting  shadow, I like to consider the shaded area and lay up a wash of Cobalt Blue or Ultramarine Blue in them, especially when painting people.

In this particular painting a Cobalt Blue for the shaded area will be used, since the three selected colors to create the harmony of the painting are Cobalt Blue, Scarlet Lake, and Winsor Yellow. To create a warm skin tone for this painting, the colors used will be a wet Scarlet Lake and Winsor Yellow manipulated by brush to allow the colors to mingle on paper. As shown on the boys shirt and hat and the top of the “elderly” gentleman’s head, saved whites will portray the most brilliant areas of sunlight.

If you study the unfinished painting on the left, you can see the teenage girl has been shaded with Cobalt Blue. I’ve learned by past mistakes made that the under paint must dry to a “bone” dry before laying a wash on top of it; otherwise, the skin tone turns out to be much too dark.

The painting is busy. It will have several other people in it, showing some working beneath the umbrellas selling their wares to visitors stopping by to shop. Others are walking up and down the walk. These, will still have under paintings for shadows with glazes painted over, but not to the detail, nor the same technique as the three in the main focus area.

The farthest away the people are portrayed, their value will lighten. However the technique that will be used is much simpler. Much of the exposed skin area will remain white because of the bright sun glaring off it. I will also use a controlled value of burnt sienna over blue. I can create a real interesting distant skin tone by reversing the technique, using Ultramarine Blue glazed over the Burnt Sienna as the shaded area. It actually gives the sensation of a third color, which plays well with a bright day beneath a shadow of an umbrella.

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