Using a variety of sizes of brushes helps you acheive different tones and textures for hair.
Painting in hair is a part of completing a portrait, which is a likeness of person created by the painter. Many people find this confusing and are not sure begin. You can draw hair in acrylics, oil paints, watercolor and watercolor pencils whether the hair be fair or dark. Using the correct brushes to achieve the style of the hair is essential. A rake brush or fan brush with its strong tips at the end can be used like a comb painting through the hair. A very thin brush is useful in painting strands of hair.
Instructions
Watercolor Pencils
1. Scribble along the direction of the hair over the entire area of the hair until it is fully covered. Wet the area with wet brush in small areas working quickly to avoid hard edges. Follow the lines of the direction of hair. After one to two minutes once this has dried add a second layer following the direction of the hair with your pencil.
2. Scrape a pencil of a lighter color through the area in direction of the hair while the paper is still wet to create extreme highlights on the hair. The remainder will be done in dry pencil. Draw in individual hairs with a dry pencil onto dry paper. You can always wet the paper again to create a more solid look or to add more tints.
3. Draw in the hair thinly with appropriate colors and wet with water to soften and blend the edges using a small brush following the direction of the hair. Use a range of three colors per hair -- dark at the root, light in the center and mid range at the tip. Once dry, draw in the long hairs, not wetting them to leave them well defined. Use highlight colors to add shiny parts of the hair.
Painting Dark Hair with Acrylic and Oil Paints
4. Paint in the flesh color above the hairline. Use three tones when painting dark hair being the darkest, mid-tone and the lightest. Paint in a block of color first, using the darkest color in the direction that the hair growth follows.
5. Put in the mid-tone color where the light hits the hair, not completely covering the dark hair color but rather creating strokes on top of it to mimic hair texture.
6. Put in highlights where the light touches the hair, using the mid-tone color mixed with white or the lightest color in the range. Once dried you can go over the hair again with a glaze or further tint the hair.
Painting Fair Hair in Acrylic or Oil Paints
7. Paint in a block color of the lightest color of hair there is then add the darker colors later. This is the technique used for fairer hair. Use the dry-brushing technique, in which there is little water on the brush and just a small amount of paint. The dry brushing technique gives the impression of many little brushes painting at the same time.
8. Look for darker areas and paint them in to tone up the hair. Define the lighter block color with darker tones in the direction of the hair in the portrait.
9. Add individual strands of hair with a thinner brush.
