Home › Forums › Explore Media › Casein, Gouache, and Egg Tempera › Gouache Portraite from Photograph
- This topic has 8 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 5 years, 5 months ago by SusF.
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August 12, 2018 at 8:58 am #460349
Hi All,
‘been a very long time since I posted on Wetcanvas… but this is the first time I’m posting in the gouache section.
Due to lack of suitable working space, and the fact that my oil paints are in another state… I’ve set up in my bedroom and am attempting to translate some oil techniques to a less toxic medium.
I’m using winsor & newton designer gouache on home made primed canvas panels with two layers of QOR (golden brand) watercolour ground – 21cm x 29cm
The painting is from a photo of actor Terry Crews that I found through a random image search of male portraits.
It’s a very minimal palette… Permanent White, Ivory Black and Raw Umber. I also laid down a wash of Brilliant Purple (Schminke watercolour) and the under drawing was done with a Conte a Paris Sanguine XVIIIe pencil.
Anyway, I haven’t painted traditionally for over 2 years…so I still have to work a lot of the rust out, but it’s a start
Thanks for having a look… advice and feedback welcome, particularly if you know how I can soften my edges without accidentally lifting the paint off completely (Perhaps some kind of slow drying medium for gouache…I know they make something like that for watercolour…I might give that a go)
August 13, 2018 at 3:32 am #674425As you are finding Gouache works quite differently to oil because of the fast drying and the reactivating.
Tiling the initial colour placement as you have done works well, then use intermediate colour to blend in the transitions. These intermediate colours are best archived if you have strung out the mixes initially on the palette.
For this portrait the rouged look of the corse tiling suites the subject and you have produced a good portrait, you obviously know what you are doing.
Good luck with the Gouache, remember the fast drying is your friend.Tipo
August 13, 2018 at 5:42 am #674419Excellent portrait.
Doug
We must leave our mark on this worldAugust 13, 2018 at 6:44 am #674421Hi Tipo,
Thanks for the advice…yeah, I guess I’m still in oil painting mode… which is ironic because oil’s slow drying time frustrated me too.
Hi Doug,
Thanks for the compliment
August 16, 2018 at 8:13 am #674422Hi again…
So I went out and bought some winsor & newton blending medium and experimented with another random photo… same colours, bigger panel – coarser weave (has a better feel).
I also read something about people using K Y jelly as a medium and thought I should give it a try.
Anyway, I ended up using about 1-2 ratio of KY to Blending medium that gave me a couple of seconds blending time which I used my finger to do… the mix let me push the paint around without disturbing the layer beneath too much.
Now my issue is the opacity of winsor & Newton’s permanent white… can anyone recommend something better?
Cheers
August 22, 2018 at 8:13 pm #674423Another portrait study… same basic palette.
This time I didn’t use the Blending Medium or KY.
I’ve been looking at Velasquez’ Juan de Pareja (just online, I live in Australia)… and a couple of John Singer Sargent’s portraits and wanted to get some of that nice streaky brush work that I was seeing… which got me to thinking “what brushes did Velasquez use?”… did some basic research, but mainly relied on wild assumptions based on half heard information :P
Well, I jumped to the conclusion that the brushes he used can’t have been as good as what we have available to us today…so, I went out and bought some cheap (95 cent) brushes from the craft section of the hardware store. Oh the scratchy goodness.
Looks nothing like a Velasquez, but it was a fun little experiment. Learned a lot from this one… mainly ‘be mindful of how you light your work space’. I shifted my lamp a bit too close to the painting… which made it hard to see tonal shifts.
Anyway, stay tuned… coming up next “Watercolour Impasto Medium with Gouache’
August 23, 2018 at 1:54 pm #674424November 6, 2018 at 11:57 pm #674426Of the three, I prefer the first, but they all work well on different levels. You might want to try mixing egg yolk and water in for a tempera effect (there are some online descriptions of how to do it). Nicely done, enjoy experimenting.
- David
"Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working." --Picasso
November 14, 2018 at 4:11 am #674420 -
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