It took me almost two years to write this book. My goal is to provide a simple yet effective method to create the subtle and realistic color and shading necessary for a successful portrait. This book provides a variety of straightforward exercises that can teach you the basics of creating a realistic skin tone, understanding how light interacts with the skin, and then learning how to extend these fundamentals to create a range of different skin tones typical of different ethnicities.

The foundation of the technique taught in this book is known as Verdaccio, a term that derives from the Italian word for green. Versions of the Verdaccio technique have been around for centuries and were used by Renaissance artists to paint realistic skin tones in frescoes and oil paintings. I have researched and adapted this technique for use with pastel pencils, and the result is a recipe that many of my students have found to be transformative for their artwork.

This book contains a variety of different tutorials that you can follow. At each stage of each tutorial, I clearly show how colors are layered to achieve the final effect. You can learn by reproducing these tutorial portraits yourself, or by following these steps with your own, original artwork.