Sketch Awesome Project 3

Project 3 – Gouache

I’ve been playing with gouache for a few months now and was very excited to see this week’s project 3. I had not expected the main project to be about swatches and gradients, but I do understand why it was important. I love how Phil is teaching but must say that the gouache does not seem to be his thing. Regardless, it was fun and good practise.

This week project was split into two parts:

Part1 & 2 – Swatches and Consistency

Both together took about slightly over 44 minutes. We made a consistency swatches, did a bit of layering and mixing various tones of greys.

 Later we progressed to gradient and layering.

I was not following the tutorial to a dot and was doing “my own thing” as I wanted to experiment with blending a little bit more.

Flower was not a part of the project but felt like it would be a good idea.

Part 3 – Bonus: Toadstool

I wanted to try something different, so I was not following the tutorial at all. I had a different idea for my toadstool at the beginning, but as it often happens, it has turned out a different but better way in the end. I was playing with a stippling brush to create a soft moss texture and put some grass in the foreground just because I like to paint grass. Colour mixing is still not my strong suit but at least I had an opportunity to practise more.

This week summary

• gouache is a great and fascinating medium and looooove how matte finish looks like
• takes practise to find just the right amount of water
• better quality gouache is lush to work with compared to cheaper, less pigmented ones
• finding the right brushes for gouache is almost a nightmare
• I like this spread in my sketchbook the best (so far)
• on Artkula comunity was split into two groups people who liked/loved gouache and people who got very frustrated with gouache which was interesting to see