Pencil, Paint, Pizzazz: Create A Mixed-Media Portrait with Harmony Reid
Add a pinch of "pizzazz" to your portraits with just pencil and paint.
In this mixed-media portrait lesson, artist and educator Harmony Reid walks you through her layered, intuitive process for combining graphite, watercolor, ink, and acrylic to create a portrait that’s full of character and texture.
Starting from a simple pencil sketch in her watercolor sketchbook, Harmony shows you how to build luminous skin tones, sculpt form with layered washes, and keep the face as your focal point while letting clothes and background stay loose and suggestive.
You’ll see how she uses graphite values under watercolor to keep the portrait from feeling washed out, then pushes depth with cooler purples and blues in the shadows.
From there, Harmony switches to brush pens, metallic gel pens, and acrylic markers to sharpen features, carve out expressive facial hair, and add “pizzazz” in the form of gold glasses, jewelry, freckles, and a shimmering border that pulls the whole piece together.
Along the way, Harmony also shares practical tricks for getting an accurate drawing to start from—using digital tools, graphite transfer, or a simple grid—so you can follow along no matter your experience level.
Ready to create a portrait with pizzazz? Let's get started!
