Basic Techniques of Gouache Painting

For beginners, there are two difficulties confuse them. One is that you can't capture the small change of the colors when you before a still life . The second is that you capture the right color by your eyes but you can’t mixing it. It doesn’t mean that you are color blindness when you can’t find accurate color. To a large extent,  it’s relative to your experience. Art meterials such like brush , gouache color, and some other drawing tools.

Toning

When you are sketching with your art tools, the color blending  is based on the correct observation and understanding of the object’s color relationship. The color can't be viewed in isolation,. instead, considering the entire tone and color relationship could help you decide proper color in the whole gouache. The gouache color is not easy to connect when sketching. It should also be based when you understand the color relationship, and then try to mixing the several mainly color blocks to draw up.If you use a lot of powder (white) when you are coloring, or you have already painted a thicker color layer, and then color the gouache painting, and use a paper with strong water absorption, the dry and wet changes of the pigment are more remarkable. 

How to use water correctly?

Although, the use of water is not as important in gouache as it is in watercolor paintings, it cannot be ignored. In general, proper water can make the picture smooth, moist, and thick. Excessive use of water reduces chromaticity, causing some blots, stains to accumulate. As for the drawing steps. When the big tone is used, the water should be used more, so that the color layer is thinner, then it can be colored again. In the process of painting, if the water is too dirty, it should be changed in time. In particular, the parts with vivid colors should be cleaned with water.

Connection

The color of the gouache is dried quickly and the dry and wet changes obviously, at the meanwhile, with adding the water, the gouache color would flow at the painting. Therefore, mastering the jointing skills skillfully has a great relationship with the painting of gouache. 

The connection of gouache can be divided into three methods: wet connection, dry connection and crimping. The so-called wet connection is the adjacent color block. When the front color is not dry, the second and third colors are connected. Or two adjacent colors are connected, or lick the other color in a piece of color and let it permeate, or put a few different colors on different parts of the pen, and use the moisture of the pen belly to draw it naturally when it is drawn on the paper. 

What is knife painting?

Gouache painting can be painted with a palette knife, or it can be painted with a homemade bamboo knife. This is which we called knife painting.When gouache is used to absorb the pen technique of other paintings, it must be based on the characteristics and performance of gouache. The purpose is to enrich the technique of gouache and enhance the expressiveness of gouache.

I don't think that color can be seen, it is not color blindness, or the method is wrong. Seeing the color, it can't be adjusted to a large extent is related to experience. Teaching gouache for more than ten years, I think the only thing that can't be taught is coloring. Why? Because each person's feeling is different, the color is different; the type of coloring, the proportion of the color may restrict the place. Whether the color of the tone is accurate or not. If you want to compare the color you see, you should first summarize the perceived color and see which color is closer to it. What is the difference? 

Then break it down and split the color you see into two color or three colors, not too much, it is easy to get dirty, compare the following two or three colors to best match the color you need. Next, we must try to allocate the proportion. Perhaps the ratio of the amount of pigment is the most difficult to grasp when we color. The proportion is not correct, and the color that is called out is not inclined to be wrong, or too late. Some students often ask how to adjust a certain color, such as the bright part of a yellow apple. I told him to use white to add light green and add lemon yellow, but when he calls it out, it may lack green tendency, or it may be too green. It may be too powdery, all of which indicate that the method of coloring is sometimes impossible to teach. Only by your own feelings.