Artist of the Year 2025: Masterclass - Season 1 Episode 37 Pushing Colour in Portraiture
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00:00We first met today's tutor, Tom Croft, on Portrait Artist of the Year in 2018, when
00:18he painted presenter and journalist Kirstie Walk, who picked his portrait to take home.
00:24I'm going to choose Tom's.
00:25Thank you very much, Indy.
00:26Thank you so much.
00:27Thank you so much.
00:31Two years later, during lockdown, Tom took part in Portrait Artist of the Week, painting
00:37opera singer Lesley Garrett live on air.
00:42During the pandemic, Tom started the hashtag Portraits for NHS Heroes by offering a free
00:48portrait to the first NHS key worker to contact him online.
00:53He encouraged other portrait artists to do the same, and it grew into a global charity
00:59initiative for which Tom received a British Empire medal in 2021.
01:05An expert colourist, Tom loves to experiment with his palette, which is why he is leading
01:11today's masterclass on pushing colour in portraiture.
01:37Today I'm going to show you how to bring your portraits to life with your use of colour.
01:42We're going to crank up the chroma, and it's a way of very safely experimenting and being
01:47very creative.
01:48Tone is key, form is key, but you can really take liberties with colour.
01:52So let's get at it.
01:57So I've got my reference here of my nephew, Bash, who is an actor.
02:02So I've pre-drawn Bash on my canvas here.
02:06And I think there's a lot of snobbery, frankly, about working from life.
02:10I think it's a modern world.
02:12We're moving fast these days.
02:13By all means, take a couple of weeks in my case to draw up, or you could trace an outline.
02:20I've got no problem with that.
02:21You could grid up an outline to give you the kind of benefit of proportion.
02:25But if your end goal is to produce a painting, I don't think it matters that much about the
02:32So I'm going to lay out my colour palette now.
02:36I like to lay out long, almost slug-like colours, because that way, when I get colour mixing,
02:43you don't want to dirty the colours.
02:44As you go and as you mix, you tend to drag different colours into these other colours.
02:49So to keep them nice and pure, to keep them nice and vibrant, you want to just have a
02:54nice long section you can just dip into and nick a little bit here and there.
02:58It's quite a good tip to keep your colours nice and clean.
03:01So I've got an old picture frame here, which I've recycled and using as the palette today.
03:07And the reason that's quite a good thing to do is you can put any coloured card underneath
03:12the glass.
03:13So I've put this grey, and it's exactly the same grey as I've got on my canvas.
03:18That way, I know that when I mix a colour here, whatever it looks like here, it's going
03:22to look exactly the same when I put it on the canvas.
03:28This won't shock you, but if you want to create bright, vibrant paintings, you're going
03:42to need some bright, vibrant colours on your palette, right?
03:45So the Zorn palette, very limited, very reduced, you can get some amazing colours out of it,
03:50but we're using some, look, bright, lively blues.
03:53This is called Scheveningen Blue Light, I believe it's from Holland.
03:58This is Golden Green Deep.
03:59So you can see I've really kind of turned the saturation up, and that's essential to
04:04create really kind of dynamic and lively portraits.
04:08So let's get on with some colour mixing, and the key to bright colours and sort of amping
04:14up saturation is to know how to control, so you need like a volume control on your colour, right?
04:20I'm going to show you how to do that right now.
04:22So here is some bright red, and you can see that, super zingy.
04:25And say I was trying to mix the colour of my skin here, look, and I'd think, alright,
04:30well, how do you figure out a colour?
04:32Firstly, I'd suggest you try and describe it with words.
04:35So I would say that is a kind of yellow ochre-ish kind of colour, so there's likely to be a
04:41bit of yellow ochre in it, so I'll reach for a bit of that, put that there.
04:45It's lighter than the colour of the tube, so I know I can add some white, obviously,
04:49to lighten that.
04:50So let's lighten that, look.
04:52But it's looking far too pink, far too bright, far too saturated, so how can I get control
04:57of that colour?
04:58I'm going to mix my opposite colour, so I'm going to mix my green, and look how little
05:02I need.
05:03I'm going to get a tiny little nick there.
05:05And when you're mixing colours, try mixing them on the side, like that, so don't dump
05:12all of the green into the middle of your mixes, because that will blow the whole thing apart.
05:16You want a bit of control.
05:17It's almost like cooking, where you're adding a little bit of seasoning to it, so taste
05:21it, see how you go, add a touch more.
05:30So let's get cracky on the painting.
05:32I'm going to start in a safe place, like any job, you don't want to start with a really
05:36hectic, crucial detail.
05:38Start with a place we can warm up in, so I'm going to do the peak of the cap, and I'm going
05:42to describe that colour.
05:44It's a blue, because he's wearing a blue cap, but there's not a lot of colour in it that
05:48I can see.
05:49So we start with our blue, but obviously that's going to be too blue when we put it on, because
05:59that is just pure blue out of a tube.
06:01So how can I knock that back?
06:03We're going to use that opposite colour, aren't we?
06:05So I'm going to take a little bit of this orange, and I'm just going to add it on the
06:08side and just see.
06:10Now that's a little bit greenish.
06:13Am I seeing green there?
06:15Not particularly.
06:16So I'm just going to shuffle down from our orange to our red, and again, it's finding
06:21what neutralises that colour, and I think that's going to work pretty well.
06:26Let's have a look.
06:27Yeah, that's more neutral, so I'm pretty happy with that.
06:32So these early stages are me feeling my way, but also just establishing some colour, establishing
06:51some tone, and we will get to the lively colours later.
06:55You really need some fairly dull, desaturated sections that will then contrast and amplify
07:01the brighter colours later.
07:13So the forehead is more or less blocked in now, and I'm going to reach for the glasses
07:18at this point, essential, because I can't actually see.
07:20Oh my God.
07:22So we're going to start to crank it up now, and I'm going to start to exaggerate what
07:27we see.
07:29So within his eyebrows here, there is a lighter patch we can see, there's a section that's
07:34going to run across here, and I'm going to take liberties with it, because as I say,
07:39if the tone is right, you can really go experimental, and I'm going to push it to quite a bright
07:46pink.
07:47So I've got some white here, I'm going to go Winsor red, which is a cool red, and just
07:53to show you how colour can kind of jump as soon as you introduce a little bit of it.
07:59This is going to look crazy, but it will give us permission for the rest of the picture
08:04to then really go for it with the colour, so here we go.
08:10I mean, you know, there are a few stages in life, you can still say the word thwar, and
08:16I would say that is definitely one of them.
08:20Now the right-hand side of his face is quite cool in its temperature, so we want to mix
08:25cooler colours, but over on this side, let me show you, it's much warmer, so I can take
08:31this kind of pinky mix I've got, I can add in a bit of, I could even probably go orange,
08:36just a touch, so a little nick of it added in on the side, and we'll just put a mark
08:41of this down and see how it looks, so I'm going for just under his eyebrow, there's
08:45this very warm patch of reddish-orange, now I accept that it's far brighter than the reference
08:52we're looking at now, but that's sort of the whole point of this, it's a very safe, creative
08:56playground colour, and you can really, really exaggerate.
09:14And think about your brush marks, your brush marks are literally who you are, they're your
09:20fingerprint, they're what makes you unique as an artist, you hear artists talking about
09:25trying to find their style, it's the way you put paint down, so if you're a nervous, you
09:30know, one-hair brush twitchy artist, that's brilliant, lean into that and make that your
09:35signature style, if you're an energetic, move at 100 miles an hour, virtually slam it into
09:41the canvas, that's great too, because particularly with AI coming in, we need artists to look
09:46unique and give us fresh views on portraiture and hopefully have a kind of human connection
09:52with it too, so celebrate your uniqueness through your brush marks.
09:57So up to this point, I've been using this synthetic brush, and it's very good for putting
10:01down nice, flat, smooth colour, but I want to mix it up a bit now and get a bit more
10:06texture in my marks, so I'm going to use this very sad, battered looking thing, very
10:12much like me, and the reason I'm switching to this, this is a hog hair brush, it will
10:18deliver slightly thicker gobs of paint, and you'll also see the kind of traces of the
10:23bristles in the paint, so now that we're establishing some form, let's go into detail with the hog
10:30hair brush.
10:31Okay, so let's get his eyebrows in now, so the colour I'm going to go for is a bit of
10:36Viridian Green, and the polar opposite colour to control it is this lovely, dark, sort of
10:42blood red, Alizarin, so there we go, we've put a kind of big old slug down there, and
10:50then we're just going to light it, so we're going to put in some of those highlights,
10:53and I can see, you'd probably describe it as a kind of greenish grey that is creating
10:58these highlights on his eyebrows, but that's a little bit dull, so let's go for some Viridian,
11:07and watch the colour release when I add a bit of Titanium White to it, can you see,
11:11you suddenly see what colours, they all look very dead and flat here, but add a bit of
11:15white into them, and they have this wonderful zing to them, and I'm going to put that just
11:21on this side, now this, we've already said, is the warmer side of the face, so that's
11:26quite a cool green, and there is a really good rule, if the shadows are warm, the highlights
11:34are cool, and vice versa, so bear that in mind, so for this eyebrow, we're on the cool
11:39side, so let's have a slightly, kind of warmer, so I've added a little bit of orange, a little
11:44bit of a warmer colour into that.
11:57So I've started to slowly turn the colour up a bit here, and I'm going to work on the eyes next,
12:13and the way I tend to construct an eye is, and I think this is true of any painting,
12:18don't get bogged down in the detail too early, so I'm just going to drag some green across
12:25the whole of this iris here, look at that, in one mark.
12:31So now, the whites of the eyes are almost never white, and you should look for colour
12:37in them, there's often a lot of blue, often a lot of purple, some green sometimes, so
12:42if you were looking at this reference, you will see that the brightest part on this reference
12:47is probably the highlight on his cheekbone, and maybe the one on his nose, but his eyes
12:52are kind of in relative shadow, so don't with your brain think, well that's the whites
12:57of the eyes, so I need to reach for the white, you don't, you just need to paint what you
13:01see, and I can see a kind of, what, greeny, bluey, grey, so that's what I'm going to put
13:09in here, look.
13:14So you get to these points quite a lot where you're painting and you've completely covered
13:19all of the palette, and I'm struggling to find areas to mix nice, bright, fresh colours
13:24in, so let's scrape it back, and I'll do this at least two or three times a day, and when
13:29you're scraping all this paint away that you're not going to use, why not recycle it?
13:34You could put it on your next canvas and prime it, because any bunch of colours mixed together
13:40will ultimately go grey, and you're toned, and you're ready to go on your next canvas,
13:44so how about that, you can recycle your used paint.
13:50So we're now going to look at the nose, and let's get that going.
13:58I'm going to be using a hog hair brush, and I want to talk about little strands of colour
14:04that you can get into your marks if you don't overmix.
14:08So there is a technique I use where I mix fairly fast, and you can see the strands of
14:16pigment, let me show you, so here is some Winsor Red, here's some Titanium White, and
14:23let's say a bit of Lemon Yellow, and those three together, you could mix, mix, mix, mix,
14:30mix, mix, mix, mix, mix, and you would have a very controlled, flat, certain tone that
14:35you could put down on your painting.
14:37But if you want to bring these marks to life, why not just drag a quick figure of eight
14:43through that paint, so you can see there are pure marks of yellow, there are pure marks
14:48of the red and the white.
14:51So hopefully, when we put our mark down now, you should be able to see, there we go,
14:57all of the constituent parts, you can see a little bit of yellow there, little bit of the orange,
15:02and a bit of red coming through.
15:05And when you're putting your marks down, just remember not to overblend as you're putting
15:10the mark down, because obviously that's more mixing that will dull our colours, so if you're
15:15putting a mark down, try and put it down in one go, and then back off.
15:20So this is still all a bit safe, so let's have a look at this nostril on the left, and
15:24I'm going to paint it with pure red.
15:27Sounds like madness, and it is, but there we go, pure, bright red.
15:33And we're just going to drop it in, so as soon as I've got my colour right on my brush,
15:37I think, right, now I've got to think about the angle I put this down.
15:40One mark, just drag it in there like that.
15:46And I'm happy with that.
15:48When you spot the same colour somewhere else on your painting, don't be afraid to go back
15:52and put it in there, you don't always have to mix just for the area that you're working in.
15:57And I've noticed there is a very bright red up here in the corner of his eye, and I'm
16:02going to put this crazy neon red in there, which might look a bit kind of like blood,
16:08but actually it's just a vibrant sing of colour.
16:26I don't know about you, but sometimes your hands shake a little bit, and when you're
16:30trying to go in for those details, you need your hand to be rock solid.
16:35So what you can do is you can use a ruler, you can anchor your ruler like this,
16:41it's just got to bolt through it, anchor it on the board, and you've basically got a safe,
16:47solid, straight platform to work off.
16:50So no matter how much my hands are shaking, I can angle it to where I want to put this
16:54highlight in, I can get to the right place, and I can just run my brush,
16:59in fact I'm going to do it from here, I can run my brush along the metal ruler, like that look.
17:07So I've got into the middle of a bit of wet paint, and I'm able to just put that mark down with confidence.
17:13OK, so we're now going to go to the kind of highlights on his cheekbone, and on this side.
17:19Now, we've talked about the fact this is the cool side, and this is the warm side,
17:23so I'm going to pick a cool green.
17:26You might look at this colour and think, how on earth are you going to make a highlight
17:30out of something that dark?
17:31Well, I'm going to do a cool green.
17:34So I'm going to pick a cool green.
17:37You might look at this colour and think, how on earth are you going to make a highlight
17:40out of something that dark?
17:42Well, if we use a tiny bit of it, and lots and lots of Titanium White, very loosely mixed,
17:49as you see, we're going to get that level of green.
17:53I'm mindful of the form of the head, so I want this highlight to cut all the way across to there.
18:01And I instantly love that, so I'm happy with the tone of it,
18:06and I'm very happy with the fact that we've got some green in there, which is an invention.
18:10You can see it's not there, but we are trying to just make this more interesting.
18:15Why just replicate what you see?
18:17Everyone else can see that, so why not show them the way you see colour,
18:22and that gives them an insight into your brain, into your world,
18:26and hopefully makes it more interesting to look at.
18:29Now, within a highlight, you can actually have shifts in temperature.
18:33So I do see this cool green on this side.
18:38I actually see it just being a little bit warmer here.
18:41So on the tip of it, I'm actually going to reach for our warmer green,
18:44so this is like a warm olive green, and I'm going to mix a touch of that in.
18:49So when I put the highlight in here, just on the tip,
18:52it will be a little bit brighter, but also a little bit warmer.
18:56So can you see that? That it's just turning towards the warmer side of the face,
19:01and so that creates the illusion of the form turning.
19:18So you might be thinking these colours look kind of slightly bonkers,
19:22but this is all part of what we call pushing colour.
19:25So in other words, exaggerating the colour that you see.
19:29If our tones are right, we can put any colour, as hopefully I'm demonstrating,
19:33we've got reds, greens, purples, browns,
19:36and they'll all work in harmony if we get our tones balanced right.
19:40So really push it, really give it a go.
19:56Painting teeth is generally frowned upon with artists.
19:59It can look really strange.
20:01When animals in the wild bear their teeth, it's a sign of aggression.
20:05So you rarely see portraits of people smiling,
20:08and when I smile, it's terrifying, isn't it?
20:11So worth bearing that in mind.
20:13So what do you do? Well, you summarise.
20:15So I'm going to squint, and I'm aware there are teeth in there,
20:19but I'm going to pick a general shadow tone,
20:22but I'm going to pick a general shadow tone,
20:27and I'm going to draw in where I know his teeth are in one mark.
20:36I think we need to work on the eyes a bit more now.
20:38So the reason I've left them until this point
20:41is because of this whole idea of think about the whole wood
20:44and not getting bogged down focusing on the trees,
20:46otherwise you can never see past that detail.
20:49So it's time to put in pupils, it's time to put in highlights.
20:52So this is the really kind of fun finishing touches to a picture,
20:56and just for this sketch, I think we're probably at that point.
20:59So let's start with the pupils.
21:19So I want to look at this highlight above the pupil,
21:22and I'm going to mix a little bit of green in with it,
21:25because if you add some colour into your highest highlights,
21:29it will just add a bit of texture and add a bit of form to it.
21:32White is the absence of all form, so bear that in mind.
21:36I think I'm happy with that now,
21:38so I'm going to clear some space on my palette
21:41and block in a brightly coloured background
21:44that should hopefully make sense of my colour choices.
21:55So by blocking in this background,
21:57I'm going to make it look a bit more natural.
21:59So I'm going to add a bit of green,
22:02so by blocking in this background,
22:05we've created a fairly abstract environment for him to exist in,
22:09but it also has made sense of these colour choices.
22:12They don't look as bizarre,
22:14so you can create the most imaginative, colourful world,
22:17and your subject suddenly makes sense in it because of that.
22:21So hopefully this demo has showed you that colour is fun,
22:25and it is a safe space to experiment in, so go for it.
22:28You won't always want to amplify the colours as much as this,
22:31but it is a safe space, so crank up the chroma and enjoy it.
22:38If you'd like to find out more about these masterclasses,
22:41go to our website, skyartsartistoftheyear.tv.
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