YOUNG BOY FROM THE BERYLE TRIBE

This is a portrait of a “Young Boy from the Beryle Tribe” in Ethiopia. It was my very first portrait with dark African skin. I painted the under-painting in verdaccio (green-grey)  as I had painted all my Caucasian portraits in the past. While painting the flesh it became evident that African skin has a lot of blue in it and reflecting on it. After finishing this portrait I decided to paint all my future paintings of African skin with under paintings in the blue-grey azuraccio ten value palette.

     Young Boy from the Beryle Tribe is painted on un-tempered masonite with five coats of Renaissance Marble Gesso. The finished painting was coated with oil medium. After drying for one year it was coated with five coats of damar varnish. As with the other paintings, if handled with care and kept out of direct sunlight, it should last hundreds of years.