[Ben Barker]

I'm going to lay off digital paintings, 3D, everything computer for a while. I think the more I do the worse I get. It's time to blow my weak areas wide open and work through them, and stop cheating myself with multiple undos and color pickers.

So I've started in gouache again, after a limited experience freshman year in design school. And boy, do I paint like shit. Skin tones come out looking like silly putty. I fight the paint with every stroke. I can barely control the paint on my palette, let alone on the paper. It feels like I waste too much, both on the paper and down the sink. It's like I can't control my brush strokes, either I lay down nothing at all, or a 2 foot thick wall of color.

I look at something like Spooge's chef with it's seeming hundreds of colors, or Ron Lemen's character paintings, and I don't even know where to start. Their brush strokes fade in and get stronger where needed, mine are either all or nothing.

I've always layed down a charcoal drawing first, getting the outlines in place, then plopped on paint here and there until the whole thing is covered. However, I don't think this works. How do the pros start? Do you paint in the silhouettes, obliterating any under drawing? Why even do an under drawing? Work from back to front? Light to dark?

I feel like I'm missing something big here. I read Spooge's post on the color exercise and realized that seperating color from value is something almost completely foreign to me.

Basically I'm asking if anyone has any tips on gouache painting. What was the first gouache exercise you did? What is a good way to get into the swing of this? I'm seeing things all wrong, just the finished product, not the process.

[Kaete]

Oooh, I love gouache. It's such a friendly medium.

Remember, there is no "way the pros do it." They each have their own way of working.

When I'm working with gouache, I rarely trace in the picture before. That's because the pencil line tends to show through. While I like that in some pictures, I usually don't like it in my gouache ones.

First, you should probably try something simple. A self-portrait is a great excersize.

Settle down in a comfortable spot with a mirror, a piece of water-color paper, and your gouache supplies. Give yourself a few hours.

I usually start with just a few primary colors on my pallete. My pallete is really simple. It's just the lid of a big plastic box. It gives me lots of room for mixing different colors. I also have a pitcher of water and a few brushes of varied sizes.

I start laying down the basic shapes (very lightly) with a big brush. Once I have the basic idea, I take my favorite medium brush and start working on the shapes. I concentrate a lot on color. you'd be amazed how many strange colors can be in human skin alone!

With a smaller brush I fix the detail. And voila! That's it.

Of course, I'm sure some who uses gouache more often could give you better suggestions.

[Frog]

Firstly I would say don't get discouraged! It takes time to get the hang of things, and you need to make mistakes in order to learn.

My method with gouache is to do a very precise and detailed (but light!) pencil drawing on paper and only start painting once I'm happy with that. I then block in quite thinly, treating the paint more like watercolour, and build up thickness and detail from there. This isn't really the "accepted" method but it's what works for me. I'm simply no good without a decent drawing underneath for guidance because I can't "draw" with paint and brush (I need precision).

I can see from your website that you can already paint in CG, try applying those methods you already know to your new exercise.

[edraket]

I think thats a very smart step. If you get through this it will be very rewarding.

Maybe you should try acrylics. I had more success with them. But that might be just personal.
What also helps is to try to paint something in black and white first. Get used to the paint etc. Then try to add one color so you get a duotone type thing. That way you can take it in smaller steps.
Might help...