Five O'clock Shadow

[MattMcK.]

Hi All-
I'm painting the portrait bust I made of my Grandfather and need to add light 5 o'clock shadow (he had a heavy beard). What are the best techniques for use with oils? I think stippling might be too heavy, drybrushing too even. Maybe a mix of both? I'm also concerend about too high a contrast since the skin is light and the beard dark-- any advice?
Matt

 

[Brad S]

Matt,

I'm no expert, but this is what I would try in acrylics. A flesh tone mixed with some blue and thinned down considerably. Then randomly and lightly stipple it on. Then if you need to, stipple more and keep it random. Build it up lightly until you reach the effect you want. If in oils, I cant help, but maybe something similar?
Hope this helps.

G. Bradley Spelts

 

[Einion]

How best to do this depends a bit on the scale you're working. The larger you go the more you can get away with painted texture, for smaller scales a smooth tone is a better simulation, as though you were viewing a person from a given distance.

You didn't say what colour his beard was but assuming it's quite dark I'd take your flesh midtone, mix a small amount of medium grey from black and white and then blend them together. Working on the fully-dried face, stipple this mix onto the beard areas with a fairly large brush, I'd use a big synthetic round for this most likely. When you're done you can soften the effect if you wish by taking a dry soft brush and gently stippling the surface.

You don't have to be too neat doing this - stippling like this tends to be inaccurate - any areas that you don't want covered that get some of the grey on it (like the line just above the upper lip which tends to have no hair on it) can be wiped off when you're done with a fresh brush dampened with mineral spirits, this won't harm the dry oil paint underneath if you're gentle.

Einion

 

[Mack]

For the five o'clock shadows I use a very simply technique from the Shep Paine's book about painting model soldiers.
It consists in the use of paynes gray from the W&N range in the lower part of the face up to the mouth's level, than you can light this with a small amount of flesh tone.
Consider that the paynes gray is a semi matt colour that permits you to work without big problems until you haven't reached the good result for your taste.

marco

 

[JBoisson]

Yup, what those guys said. I mix around either indigo, blue-black or whatever dark blue I have on my palette at the time into a dollop of my basic flesh tone mix to get a nice five o'clock shadow shade. Blend it in on the chin, jawline and above the lip and then lighten the mix with white or naples yellow light to hit the highlights.
John