I painted this portrait of my darling daughter-in-law in Procreate. My son posted the inspiration photo of her on Valentines Day on Facebook. I am so grateful to her for all the years she has been a wonderful partner to my son and for all she contributes to her community.
I painted this sketch from life in gouache from a piece of a vine I ripped off a neighbor’s fence (they’ve moved and the house is being sold so nobody cares). I started with the flowers, which was a good thing because they shriveled quickly.
I don’t know why I feel compelled to post things that weren’t successful but I guess I appreciate seeing other people’s fails, so why not. I was happy with my drawing but just couldn’t get the gouache to work the way I wanted and the pitcher got really muddy and icky colored. At least I got the drawing pretty close to reality. Below is a photo of the setup.
I had to make myself stop or I would have worked on this one forever because the colors and expression in the Sktchy photo were so fascinating (and challenging) and fun! I again tried to focus on painting the planes of the face using mostly cool colors with some warm colors to help create dimension. The lighting really helped show the underlying structure of her face.
I was really happy with the way this gouache portrait of Olivia A. from her photo in the Sktchy app turned out. I focused on putting down patches or tiles of color, based on what I was seeing but also considering color temperature and facial landmarks. It also helped that for once did a good job on the drawing first.
Sometimes I study and study and have lots of book learning and every now and then, if I’m really lucky and persistent, it pours out of the end of my pencil or paint brush like magic and I actually meet your goals for a piece.
I wasn’t sure which version of the very pretty artist Makenna Snyder I liked best, but I think it’s monochrome version above rather than the colored version below.
When I was looking for new glasses two years ago I tried on a frame like hers and thought it was a frumpy, old-fashioned look, having seen the style the first time around several decades ago. But eventually I’ve come to see them as attractive and stylish. Now that I like them it means they’ll probably be going out of style very soon.
Below is a sketch of Tomas from Sketchy. There was something rather ominous about his bathroom selfie. I’m not sure why someone would take a photo of themselves half naked in the bathroom and post it for people to draw but I’m glad he did.
I tested the Holbein Acryla Gouache Mixing Set with the last figs from my tree before it got pruned for the winter. Working with the Acryla Gouache seems less like gouache and more like a somewhat more opaque, matte acrylic paint. I’ve been told it works well for underpainting under regular gouache or even oil paints. You can also use acryla gouache over regular gouache to correct problems, which I tried in the painting below.
I painted these daffodils in gouache on hot press paper (which I don’t think works well for gouache…not sure yet). Then I added acrylic gouache over the top to try to fix the mess I made because I had been lazy with drawing the ellipses on the glass…got a little over confident and thought I could just whip them out. But I couldn’t, hence massive corrections and then just giving up.
It’s so simple: get the drawing right first!
It cracks me up how selfies end up making noses even more prominent than in real life, including the one above of me. I’m still finding my way with gouache but enjoying the immediacy of it and the easy clean up. It doesn’t allow for reworking forever the way oil painting does, which is helping me to focus more on getting it as close to right as I can with each brush stroke and color mixture.
Below is a gouache sketch from a photo in the Sktchy app of Farah W.’s mother.
Gouache is a water-based paint similar to watercolor in some ways, but opaque and more like oil paint in other ways. Like any art form, it takes practice to build knowledge and experience and eventually be able to just paint. I was pretty happy with the painting above, done from life.
The paintings below were earlier experiments.
I made an attempt to paint my tiny but comfy galley kitchen in response to James Gurney’s “Paint A Kitchen” challenge. My kitchen is so small I had to set up my easel in the pantry and look through a doorway. The colors are really weird, thanks to being completely unfamiliar with gouache.
I thought the onions and shallots were pretty and wanted to try painting them but had lots of problems with getting chalky colors and trying to paint too many layers until the paint got too thick and yucky.
More gouache practice, trying to get the hang of the medium. It seems like the Strathmore Mixed Media Journal maybe isn’t the best paper for gouache if it’s going to be layered as it is a little too thin and smooth.
I drew and painted Hildur from Sktchy App with her bunny three different ways. First I sketched her in pencil on paper then painted her in gouache and then did a digital rendition in Procreate. Which do you like better?
I was simplifying shapes in Procreate and decided to leave off her facial features.
These apples came from my amazing friend Donna who is a hospice nurse, fosters dogs (and cares for a pack of her own), raises chickens, rescues feral kitties, and has turned her urban property into a virtual farm, with a huge garden, fruit trees and a giant chicken pen she built herself that I call chicken world. She’s funny and smart and beautiful. And on top of all that she is an amazing carpenter, tiler, sheet rock hanger, landscaper, gardener, and does almost all of her own remodeling and home maintenance.
I can’t do any of those things so I drew pictures of her apples.
Jana Bouc, Artist 