Step-by-step

Ear with Earring

Ears are ignored by so many artists but it's incredibly interesting to paint them!
There are so many things going on. Shapes are changing, transforming into each other. It's such a good exercise to improve your rendering skills.

What you need

Rembrandt oil colour Titanium White (118)
Rembrandt oil colour Yellow Ochre Light (228)
Rembrandt oil colour Permanent Yellow Medium (283)
Van Gogh oil colour Cadmium Red Medium (314)
Rembrandt oil colour Burnt Umber (409)
Rembrandt oil colour Ivory Black (701)
Round (#1 and 2) and flat (#7) synthetic brushes
Tear-off or wooden palette
Talens White spirit (090)
Talens Bleached linseed oil (025)

Tips

Before you start, go through all the steps.
If you want to work without solvents and produce a similar end result, you can work with Cobra water-mixable oil paint.
I usually divide the process of work into three stages:

The base. It's pretty sloppy. I try different colors, see how they work together, and add some variety.
The transition. If I'm happy with the result of the previous step, I proceed to mix in-between colors.
The blending. It's when I smooth lines between colors that I've already applied. I use an old fluffy brush for that.

Before we start

Make some mixes of our colours (as on the picture).

There are 4 tint colours and some white and black to add for the future mixes.

Step 1

As always, everything starts from a quick outline of Burnt Umber (409) mixed with a medium (I use a linseed oil mixed with a white spirit in equal proportions).

Step 2 - 3

Let’s start from the lightest colour and filled with it everything that you think is light.

Then take middle tones and add it to the canvas.

Next step will be to paint some deep parts of the ear by using the mix of White, Yellow Ochre and Cadmium Red. And add some shadows with the darkest mix we have on the palette.

Step 4 - 6

I am adding some highlights with the mix of White, Yellow Ochre and Cadmium Red.

And some Cadmium Red and Yellow Ochre to the darkest parts.

On the top part of the ear I’ve put the pure mix of White and Ivory Black.

Step 7 - 9

Work with the middle side by adding some mixes with Ivory Black.

Put a bit of Red to the middle colour and add it to the bottom of the ear.

After that, I work with transition colours to shape the ear. For that I am mixing colours that are next to each other on the palette.

Step 10

With a fluffy brush I am working on blending the colours on our ear.

Step 11

Let’s start with the earring.

For the lightest part use a mix of White and a bit of Yellow.

For the top part – mix the lightest colour with the most Orange on the palette. Add Cadmium Red for the darkest part of the earring. And don’t forget about the shadow that earring gives to the ear.