Sharon Sprung is a contemporary realist who has taught at both The Art Student's League of New York and The Museum School of the National Academy for the past 30 years. Her paintings and portraits have been exhibited since the late 1970's, including many one-person shows at Gallery Henoch in New York City.

But it is one of the highest honors for a painter to be commissioned for a White House portrait! We are thrilled to share here, First Lady Michelle Obama, by Sharon Sprung, oil on panel, 44 x 36 inches, White House Collection, Washington, DC  photo credit: White House Historical Society.

Her works involve highly developed realistic figure painting against abstract backgrounds, with acute attention to color mixing to achieve a range of life-like flesh tones. Also shown here are Sharon's  U.S. House of Representatives commissioned portrait of Patsy Mink, portrait of Kevin W. Sharer, and Nature/Nurture, all oil on panel.

"My paintings are a carefully observed negotiation, manipulated layer upon layer in order to create a work of art as equivalent as possible to the complexity of real life.They are an attempt to control the almost uncontrollable substance that is oil paint, and the equally untamable expression of the human condition". - Sharon Sprung

Derived from Sharon Sprung's palette, this set includes 11 colors essential to mixing skin tones and painting facial features.

All 40ml tubes of our:

Flake White - Delicate painting white able to create the illusion of space and atmospheric nuance, this ancient white pigment will add dimension and transparency to more opaque colors and mixtures. 100% Lead Carbonate that is warm in mixing and translucent.

Permanent Bright Red - Broadening the range of more bluish reds and violets, our Permanent Bright Red is a very bright lightfast, and intense warm modern Pyrrole. Ideal primary red for clean mixtures with any warm or cool color.

Cobalt Blue - Genuine and pure, richly pigmented Cobalt for mixing gentle cool tones.

Permanent Alizarin - Deep, rich, cool and transparent, our new Permanent Alizarin is a modern, completely lightfast and permanent alternative to a traditional Alizarin Crimson. While there is no substitute for the nuanced beauty of Alizarin Crimson that offers more control for delicate mixtures, our Permanent Alizarin does come close to it. Since it is based on modern color chemistry and intensely pigmented with a high performance brilliant Anthraquinone Red pigment, the Permanent Alizarin will be more robust in mixing.

Yellow Ochre - Our Yellow Ochre is a Natural Yellow Earth, golden, translucent, and warm. Ideal for mixing as an authentic natural ochre to create sensitive greens or bring a gentle warmth to mixtures without adding shadow.

Raw Sienna - Extra rich Natural Brown Earth, almost an orange brown with great color strength. Adds both warmth and shadow when mixed into a flesh tone and is a perfect complement to cool mixing blues or blue tints to create colorful green grays.

Scarlet Sienna - Intense, very warm Natural Brown Earth, this deep brick red is also an authentic Burnt Sienna. Lighter in value and redder than the regular Burnt Sienna, in both mass tone and tint, the Scarlet Sienna is a very useful warm brown for building flesh tones rich with color.

Red Umber - Natural Brown Earth mixing and tinting cool and pink, Red Umber creates colorful deep neutrals with the warmer Ultramarine Blue.

Burnt Umber - Warm Natural Brown Earth, a deep chocolate with a subtle yellow undertone. Our Burnt Umber is not mixed from synthetic oxides and, therefore, has a cooler and more natural undertone making it useful for neutralizing other colors in a mixture.

Raw Umber - Unsurpassed for silvery grays when tinted with whites, our Raw Umber is a slightly green, richly dark Natural Brown Earth that is distinctly neutral in mixing.

Payne's Gray - Very deep, almost black, charcoal gray mixture that makes cool, only slightly bluish tints with white.

Visit sharonsprung.com for an instructional video, Sharon Sprung: Understanding Value in Skin Tones, which demonstrates her techniques step by step on how to mix colors and achieve a range of life-like flesh tones.