Saturday, June 29, 2019

Painting Architecture in Gouache


There's no single way to paint architecture in gouache. For this one, I'm using a warm grisaille over a yellow-ochre primed surface.



During the course of the video (Link to YouTube), I identify 25 tips that you might want to try.

Note that I set up a very slight gradation of the sky color from lighter on the left to darker on the right. The lighter sky on the left provides a better backdrop to the sark telephone pole, and the darker sky on the right sets up for the brightness of the roof.


Jeanette painted a vertical composition of the house, and included a pile of gravel and some old beams in the foreground. She used transparent watercolor with a larger palette that included Hooker's green for the plants and cerulean for the sky. The paper is an ivory-toned Fabriano stock in Erwin Lian's "Perfect Sketchbook."

10 comments:

Rich said...

Great advice!
thanks for the acute observation/rendition.

It seems, even without painting, walking around and observing, you enjoy whatever surrounding.

Luca said...

Thanks for this video: your painting is wonderful (the corona effect is a wonderful touch) and the tips very useful as always! I never tried pencils with gouache, it seems they add a lot in terms of details!I've to try it!
Talking about gouache, i've got a question about the "Gouache in the wild" video, the "rule of thumb" in particular(if it's in light paint lighter than it appears, if it's in shadow paint it darker than it appears) : i understand what you mean, but i can't grasp the reason behind it. Is it to have a wider range of values in the painting and improve contrast, to compensate the opaque look of gouache or why? Thanks in advance!

Sujanith Tottempudi said...

Sir James, I'm regular follower of your you tube. Please could you write a book on gouache basic and advanced. There is no book available like that. Who else can be better at that than you. I already bought and read color and light like bible....two pages everyday

KarlaB said...

Your videos are a joy to watch. The realism in your paintings are astounding, even with such a limited palette. I so enjoy seeing Jeanette's painting a different perspective and the plants and foliage are brought out. I only dream of painting.

Bevan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Pat Rock said...

Lovely paintings. Nice to see Jeanette’s beautiful transparent watercolor as a contrast to your opaque gouache.

Maria Peagler said...

Thanks for sharing Jeanette's Pai thing as well. Great to see her work since y'all sketch together.

CerverGirl said...

Thank you for sharing both paintings—how great you do this together.

Pierre Fontaine said...

Just wanted to chime in that your video is inspirational and instructive and a joy to watch as always. Thank you as well for including your wife's painting. It's always interesting to see how 2 different artists paint the same scene at the same time.

Insaf ali said...

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