Saturday, July 8, 2017

Gouache on a Colored Underpainting

Here's a tip for painting in gouache. You can prep some pages in your sketchbook with various colored underpaintings.



When you're choosing a subject to paint, study it first to see if a certain color pops up throughout, and then pick an underpainting with that color. The priming color will influence later passages and will unify the painting.

For such underpaintings, you can use Acryla Gouache, matte acrylics, or Casein.

You'll also notice the maiden voyage of my reflector system, which bounces light back into a shadowed painting when facing contre jour.

Linkistics
(Link to video on YouTube)
Gumroad tutorial "Gouache in the Wild."
Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter (James Gurney Art)

5 comments:

Elena Jardiniz said...

Best use I can think of for most election signs....

Biff said...

For the house painting, did you use a drawing grid? And, if so, was your method similar to the one you demonstrated in one of your 'in the wild' videos (I think it was the one with the antique figurines) where you used a plexiglass grid? Thanks.

James Gurney said...

Yes, I'm expeimenting with various kinds of grids, and this one was a plex grid with a waterbase chalk marker. It gave me a solid structure in 10 minutes, so I could spend the two hours on the painting.

Clare said...

Hi! Can you use watered down standard acrylics as an underpainting? Or will that affect the ability of the gouache to adhere to the page? Thanks!

James Gurney said...

Clare, yes, that should work.