I use gouache and watercolor in this painting.
Hello! Here is a video I made painting a young woman from a photo found in the Sktchy app, using gouache and watercolor together. The cool thing with the gouache is that you can work more intuitively and freely than watercolor. You can paint over and over until you are happy.
Gouache lays down opaque layers which can hide layers underneath, similar to painting in acrylic. It has a rich and vibrant quality, similar to pastels, and it can be used in sort of a rough way.
Gouache can be reworked hours or even days after it has been applied. In fact, it stays workable almost indefinitely. (more about Gouache paint here )
I use Sktchy to find free reference photos. Sktchy is kind of like Instagram, but, here is how it goes.
- You go into the app and find a photo that you like in someone’s profile and then you draw it. You have permission to draw from any of the photos.
- After drawing, you share your drawing by uploading and attaching your artwork to your reference. Just by tapping the icon under the reference photo.
- By swiping any artwork to the right in the app, you can view its reference photo.
- You can upload your own photos so that other artists can draw you.
It is a very supportive and wonderful community so go for it! I really enjoyed the way you can collect lots of photos for inspiration in the app, like on Instagram or on Pinterest you can store pictures in one place. Cool!
Finding a subject
What is the first thing you notice about the person? Big eyes? small lips? the shape and the nose? Ask yourself what is the first thing you see. What makes them different from most other people. Try to find something that captures what makes them ‘them’.
Find a pose that shown some personality. A big smile is a great quality in a photo.
I often use snapshots in my artwork, this is part of the story and my interest in old photos is the point.
Choose a pose that shows your subject’s features and personality.
Make sure the photo:
- is well lit
- has good resolution
- has good contrast
- has a good background
A thing I would like to mention is that photos are taken within a fraction of a second and therefore they freeze time. If you think of the old painted pictures from art history, they “hold time”. in a classical portrait, we often see that the “moment” they captured is not an instant, but reflects a much longer time than a snapshot from a camera.
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If you like this and want to know more about watercolor and art, I am holding some painting retreats in Vence on the Cote dÀzure in France October 2021 and you can take my online class on drawing faces.