Thursday, October 31, 2019

How to Start a Watercolor

How should you start a watercolor? There are many ways, but this time I start loose, knowing I can use gouache to make corrections and paint my white accents.


After a colored pencil lay-in, I lightly establish the local color, then the background tones, and finally I use white gouache to sharpen edges and paint the lighter values.



(Link to Video on YouTube) Here are the watercolor pigments I'm using:
Raw sienna
Lemon yellow
Cadmium red 
Transparent red oxide
Alizarin crimson
Anthraquinone blue
Titanium white (gouache)

Other ways to start a watercolor (YouTube links):
Detailed, transparent only
Urban streetscape with fountain pen
Watercolor and colored pencils

15 comments:

Bevan said...

I am curious, Windsor Kinkade, any relation to your friend Tom?

Such a pretty place and you choose to paint a folding chair... it was the railing and shadows that caught my eye. My first thought was why the chair? Yet your chair ends up such a beautiful piece that I can't help but feel bad for my first thought.

James Gurney said...

Yes, Winsor is his daughter. Painting a folding chair was funny because the house was so full of antiques, but I liked the way the light shined on it.

Bevan said...

My only other wish I'd that we could have seen the other three paintings too.

Vladimir Venkov said...

Beautiful painting. Thank you for the tutorial.

Rich said...

Van Gogh and Gauguin also painted a chair in warm and cool tones - yours reminded me.
They were no folding examples, though.

How the light shines through your texture.

bernicky said...

What Stephen and Nyree said.

James Gurney said...

Stephen and Bernicky, I agree, it would have been nice to see what everyone else painted, but I didn't want to obligate everyone to be part of my video.

Bells said...

Fantastic, I love to follow your blog... TY :)

Steve Gilzow said...

When you went back in and repainted the chair leg that had been covered by gouache, was the paint again a mixture of gouache and watercolor?

James Gurney said...

Steve, yes, I went back in with watercolor. Gouache made its way into the mixtures more and more as the painting went along.

Mitch M. said...

What is the difference in drying time between gouache and gouache/watercolor mix or is that dependent on the amount of water and ambient temperature?

Mitch M. said...

sorry ,unknown is Mitch.

mellowsmoothe said...

Hi James, I was wondering what specific products (and any links you have) you are using for the light diffusers that scatter the light over your sketchbooks. Thanks!

James Gurney said...

Mellowsmoothe, please check out this blog post and video: http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/2018/05/improved-diffuser.html

mellowsmoothe said...

Great thanks! Oh my... I gotta build it. :P