You can mix gouache and watercolor
when you paint outdoors on location.
I’ll be doing this painting for you
and sharing twelve top tips
for achieving realism on location.
(curious xylophone melody)
(melody fades)
The first thing is use a watercolor
sketchbook or board that’s made
for watercolor, and then
when you do the drawing on there
just focus on what attracted you,
don’t try to put in everything.
So what I wanna do is approach this
by first laying in a tone across
the whole background,
just to get rid of the white of the paper.
(scratching bristles)
Now I start with big brushes
and wet mixtures.
Early in the picture
the painting can be very wet
and you can use inch-wide brushes
or bigger and lay in big areas.
You'll use small brushes
and drier textures later.
Now I want to paint in the shadow
and here I’m using the brush
with a little bit of white, but
it’s still mainly transparent.
And I'm deliberately using
warm and cool mixtures
to get those variations.
With transparent watercolor
you get textural variations that
you don’t get as you start bringing in
more opaque white in the mixtures.
(passing cars)
I'm using mixtures of
blue and raw sienna
and black and yellow,
and perylene maroon,
which is a kind of red.
As you paint, think of parallel planes
or facets of the form
that are facing in the same direction
because those will probably be painted
with the same color.
So at this stage the painting is
fairly messy and abstract
but I have groups of related tones
that are in parallel planes.
So the bluish, up-facing planes
on the shadow side of the snowbank
the more darker, vertical planes
of the snowbank, the dark cast shadows
just in the forward, lower edge
of the snowbank,
the dark buildings back here, and then
the very light, warm background tone.
(people talking indistinctly)
(Gurney) "Can those guys fit by me?"
(tires crunching rocks)
I use flat brushes a lot because I can use
the edge of the brush for smaller details
and then use the brush flat-on
for bigger shapes.
(bristles quietly scratching on metal)
Now I’m using more white gouache
to build up the light edge of the snow
and the diving line between
the light and the shadow.
The edge of the shadow or the terminator
as it’s sometimes called.
Gouache gives me the ability to be
very precise with my control of values,
something that a lot of other media
don't allow, and that allows me to
really control how light or dark
the shadow side is.
One of the things I like about
painting on location
is that the pressure of changing light
forces you to simplify nonessentials
and to zero in on that first impression
that attracted you.
In this case, the light and shadow
on that snowbank. So I’m simplifying
the background to its bare essentials and
focusing just on this middle-ground
and foreground area,
and leaving out the background.
(cars passing)
But with this foreground
there’s the whole gravely texture
and I can leave that with a dry brush.
Stippling it with the tip of the brush,
dragging the brush dry
with paint over the surface.
(bristles scratching)
Throughout the painting process,
I'm thinking ahead to the next steps
and I'm anticipating painting
some of the lightest values
and the brightest accents.
The very brightest values in this scene,
the highest values,
are in the reflections
in the lower left, where it's picking up
some of the bounced light from the sun.
This is the highest reflectivity
and therefore, it got the highest values.
Even much more than snow,
which as white as it is,
it absorbs a lot of light.
(cars passing, birdsong)
In this YouTube version,
I’ve got all the links to the materials
I'm using and to tutorials like
"Gouache in the Wild" below
in the description.
(bass-heavy electronic beats)
So there’s the finished painting.
It’s the work of about an hour and a half.
And you have to work quick
in these conditions, because
the light is changing so quickly.
Okay, thanks for watching!
You might want to check out my website
or subscribe to my channel.
And then here’s a playlist with
more good stuff
and a video that continues the story.
So, check ‘em out and share with your friends.
(motorcycle revving)