Welcome back to my studio.
In this video, I'm going to continue talking about gouache painting.
We're going to look at some
of the essential techniques that you need for your first gouache painting.
Now, one of the interesting things about
gouache painting is its special characteristic of being an opaque water
medium, and it's very often referred to as opaque watercolor.
Unfortunately, that can also create a bit
of confusion because some artists approach it as if it is watercolor.
And that, unfortunately, will not work out for, gouache, painting.
Getting the ideal consistency that you can
use to apply layers of paint fairly quickly is what makes gouache so great.
In fact, if you approach it the way you
would oil painting, you're going to get the best out of gouache paints.
And when I want a water based medium gouache has become my first option that
special sort of consistency that is wet enough to go on evenly but not too wet
So that you lose the
brilliance of the pigment, because gouache is about strong pigment.
And we've got to keep that.
The biggest reason for failed gouache paintings is too much water.
And the second one, too much white paint.
So maybe those are the two things we're
going to look at a bit closer in this video.
All right.
Let's have a look at getting the perfect consistency with your gouache paints.
I'm going to take some of the Jeece Finest gouache paint.
Get some white.
Put that on my mixing tray.
Just cerulean blue.
Vermillion.
OK.
Now, one of the tips, when you put your paint
out and you're getting set up is your paint is already going to start drying.
So I use my little spritzer and just a little spritz on there.
Not too much. You don't want to see puddles forming,
but just to make sure it's not trying dry too quickly.
Okay.
Now, that consistency problem, remember, gouache paint is not watercolor.
We're not putting down washes of color.
We're putting down layers.
Think of acrylics.
Think of oil painting. Proper layers of paint.
I prefer to use my paint quite thick.
So let's have a look at it.
This is straight out the two with that little spritz on it.
And let's just test the consistency of that.
Cerulean blue,
lovely, thick and strong.
You can see it is scumbling a bit as I drag it.
And that could give you a beautiful effect as well.
Just put the top of the brush in the water.
Mix it in there.
And let's try that again.
Not making it too thin.
If you bring in too much water,
you're getting a very thin layer. Then that may be fine for
toning your paper or something like that, but to paint on it
consistently,
you're going to have to
get to a thicker consistency of paint.
I couldn't do the whole painting
with this sort of watery consistency of the paint. It would make it very
difficult to manage layer over layer with wet paint like that.
But I find the perfect consistency is straight out the tube with
just putting the tip of the brush in the water and adding the water in gently.
Getting a bit more viscosity going.
Compare that to the dry over there.
That'll also gives me strong color that'll dry up pretty quickly
and I can work over that.
Let's take some yellow
and I can paint over that.
I do pick up wet
into wet.
You can mix wet into wet as well, just like you can with oils or acrylics
Using more tissue paper here just to dry off the brush.
So that really brings me to point number
two while you're painting, washing off your brush.
Always dry off your brush on the paper
so you don't bring too much water into it and ruin your consistency.
The number one problem with paintings made by beginners is they use too much water.
So if I get in some of that white,
bring it into the red.
And you can see I'm getting a nice pink color, but it's quite thick.
And I can put it down and it covers very nicely.
If it was...
If had too much water in there
I'd start getting this chalky diffraction. If you can see that.
And it's just going to end up with a very, very poor consistency.
Let's just do a quick little demo here where I'm going show you how to paint
in layers. Starting with that first thin layer,
as I showed you just now for the block in stage.
And this is pretty much how I go through the entire block-in process.
Now, remember, when you add white, the paint does tend to thicken up a bit.
Titanium white for gouache does make the paint a little thicker.
So in your blocking in stage,
you may just have to put a little touch more water to get the same consistency.
I am putting in a sort of warm gray for my clouds.
That's going to form part of this landscape.
But I still consider this to be the thin block-in stage.
Now the highlights on the clouds. I'm using more white.
Touch of water, a little bit of warm yellow
and making a highlight.
Now it's...
while, opaque, it's still fairly thin.
And with the landscape pretty much the same consistency as well
and easy to paint on a thin layer. You can see it still scumbles a bit.
So it's not a watery wash.
Right now getting into the second layer.
This is where I thicken the paint up a little more with more white,
increasing the opaque nature.
And you can see how it evens out.
And makes it a more uniform flat layer, which is what I want in this case.
Going into the clouds with second layers, bringing in more color.
And simply building up the variety of shapes in the clouds themselves.
So the main thing is.
Adding on layers. And here,
more highlights, a bit more yellow and white,
getting in these thicker layers around the edges of the clouds,
so the stronger I want the colors and bolder I want them means
making the layers thicker.
And this is basically a third layer already.
And I'll proceed that way.
I have no hesitation about adding layers.
So there you have a whole variety of
paint consistency from your first thinner layer to your working layers, which we will
paint straight out the tube and a little bit of water.
Now let's have a look at the completed painting with its many layers of gouache
to get the final effect that I'm looking for.
And there it is, quite happy with that.
Well, I hope this video helped give you a better idea of what gouache paint really is
and getting the perfect consistency for your painting.
There is some leeway.
There's a variety of paint thicknesses you can work with,
particularly in the beginning where you can be a bit thinner,
but ideally through the whole body of your painting.
And to finish off, you want good consistency.
So you get nice layers of paint and you
can actually build up those layers and make your gouache paintings really pop.
So that is what you need to focus on now.
Try out some gouache painting straight after those video
And let me know how it goes for you.
Now, remember, there's another video or
two coming up about gouache painting techniques.
And of course, a lot more demonstrations in the future.
So if you don't want to miss those,
please make sure you have subscribed and got your notifications turned on
and you'll be notified of the next video as well.
Excellent. Until the next time
Cheers for now.