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Originally Posted by Leslie Ficcaglia
Ruth, I think everyone has a different technique re blending skin tones. I either keep mixing slightly lighter tones, adding them sequentially onto the canvas to achieve a smooth transition, or, if the painting's dry enough, I'll mix whatever color I need for the effect I'm after and, with a natural bristle brush, lightly apply it on the canvas, allowing the texture of the linen or cloth to pick up however much pigment I want to see there. It's a good way to do subtle blending. With your painting I'd probably mix some mid-range skin color and brush it over the darker edges of the cheeks to smooth them in. Incidentally, I rarely use any medium at all, even with this method.
One other thing: the shoulders and arms look rather large for the age child you're painting. If you look at your reference photo you'll see that the shoulders are slighter than you have them, and the arms would be correspondingly smaller and shorter, with the elbow joint up higher. Otherwise your painting's coming along really well. Nice likeness and nice painterly feeling to it!
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Hi Leslie, thanks so much for your input! I worked more on the painting yesterday before reading your response, and one of the things I did was make the arms narrower! I may also crop the painting so it's more like the photo I sent. It's easy, as I painted on canvas board. I will definitely try to follow some of your technique advice as well. THANKS~~~!
