How to Paint Dress on a Nude Figure

In order to bring more sensuality to a piece of art, it may be necessary to add clothes to a nude figure. Why is that? One may ask.
Clothes are actually fabric that adds softness to a shape. Softness is shape. Not any shape but s-curves.

Here is a mini tutorial on how I add simple lines to imply clothes on a nude figure in a painting.

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Sketch the outline of the dress with charcoal. Keep the strokes loose.

Fill some translucent layers of white.
Fill the dress with translucent layers of white paint. The lighter the fabric the thinner the paint. Add more white to where the folds overlap.

Punch up the folds of dress with shadows.

Use some black paint to cast shadows of the folds. This will give the dress a bit more weight and the folds more life.


Paint in the Color.

Give the dress its color by layering colored paint over it. In this painting, I glazed on a light metallic blue paint.

Done!!