Painting a landscape in gouache 2

I now focus on the middle ground and distant hills. The hills have to be sufficiently greyed to push them back but at the same time there has to be a suggestion of the pattern of heather on them. I use a hog’s hair brush with solid pigment. Dragging this over the texture of the watercolour board breaks the colour up and softens it

Close attention is now paid to the middle distance. I compare the tonal and colour differences with the landscape beyond and begin adding some suggested detail of trees , gorse, and river. I paint the river in the foreground looking at how the sky is reflected in it. This necessitates painting over the foreground trees which I had initially blocked. Being gouache, this is easily done. These will be reinstated at a later stage.
I am still using fairly large brushes, building up texture, and painting loosely. The beauty of gouache is that it dries instantly, yet is opaque and remains water soluble. Alterations and additions are easy to make as will be seen in the next stage.

A traditional method of painting a portrait 3

The monochromatic underpainting being completed, I now start to apply colour. Initially, this is done with a series of glazes, transparent washes of colour laid over and modifying the cool tones already established.

For this I use a mixture of Dammar varnish, stand oil and turpentine.
The colour of the shirt is quickly blocked in also.
The next stage is to build up the texture of the skin with more solid pigment and impasto.

Painting a landscape in gouache 1

Gouache is one of my favourite mediums, particularly for painting out of doors. It dries rapidly, yet is still water soluble if you wish to go back into it and make alterations. It has a soft chalky quality about it , French chalk having been added to the pigments in their production.
As a result , it is a very forgiving medium allowing one to proceed with the minimum of planning, to easily make amendments and to paint light over dark.
In this particular painting I am working on Bockingford watercolour board and using Winsor and Newton designers gouache.

With a large hog’s hair brush I have very rapidly blocked in the general composition, the sweep of the river, the distant hills and indicated the position of the trees in the foreground. It has taken around 30 minutes for this initial stage of the painting.

Painting a landscape in acrylics - part 2

At this stage of the painting, I am blocking in some of the darker tones, and beginning to construct the various buildings. I am using stiffer pigment and building up the texture of the painting. I do this in different ways. I may stipple with a stiff hogs hair brush or sponge, use a palette knife, or print materials down. There are lots of different mediums that can also assist in this process.
e.g. sand texture gel, glass beads texture gel, heavy structure gel.