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| "Co-op Truck," black and white gouache, 5 x 8 inches. |
I have a half hour while they unload the food co-op truck, so I set up my sketchbook on a garbage can. The driver waits in the shade, leaning against the truck.
The preliminary drawing has accurate measurements, but it is very rough and incomplete, just a map of the big shapes.
I lay a light wash over most of the scene (lighter than it appears here), using some warm and cool colors from my watercolor set. This is to lower the tone just a bit from white so that I can come back up to white with the gouache.
I begin to define the dark values. I want to push the values to very light and very dark, not too many middle tones.
The driver comes over to take a picture of the sketch with his cell phone.
6 comments:
Another gem, Jim! I've really enjoyed the gouache work in the sketchbooks, own the video along with several others. I was wondering if you're using gouache strictly as a sketching medium, or if you've done or are doing finished works, illustrations, whatever, in gouache.
I personally have no interest in working in the wild--15 years or so of painting murals left me with no desire to work in public anymore--but I love gouache, and I'm enjoying seeing how far I can take it. I like it almost as much as oils, happy to have them both to jump back and forth.
In that regard, I'm wondering if there are other people like myself. I don't think of it as a contest, so much, but wondering if at some time you might come up with a way to share either larger or more finished works, the yang of painting "in the Wild."
Just curious. Meanwhile I've certainly enjoyed everything you've posted concerning gouache.
Nice!! Two questions: What tool did you use for the drawing? And, could you elaborate on why you wanted to come back up with the white, rather than just use the white of the paper?
Thanks,
Jane
Jane, With gouache, you have the opportunity to paint light accents over dark, so by painting that first overall gray tone, I could be very selective about where to place those light accents. Of course with a transparent watercolor, I'd have to know just where to leave them, and either paint around them or use masking fluid. Doing either of those requires a more exact drawing than I had.
Jeff, as for larger images for reproduction, I recently painted some of the images in the expanded Dinotopia: First Flight edition in gouache. Also, early in my career, I painted some portfolio pieces, including Sea Monster, which is pretty big, about 30 x 40 inches.
Thanks for your answer, Jim. I'll be looking for those.
Beautiful and thanks again for sharing the differents steps !
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