Before judging the quantity (or quality) of my recent efforts, bear in mind that I've spent a good deal of time recovering from a case of Covid and am just starting to get my painting mojo back. Still curious to compare/contrast gouache and watercolor, I painted the same still life in each medium, gouache on the left and watercolor on the right....
Some thoughts? In no particular order....
- I'm blown away by the results Bryan and Allison were able to get as newbies, having bought gouache instead of watercolor.
- Gouache is not meant to be layered repeatedly.
- There's a learning curve to color in gouache--blending, glazing, and how the color shifts as it dries.
- After I painted the gouache still life, I thought it was awful and looked forward to trying it again in watercolor the next day. The next day, I found the gouache didn't look as bad as I remembered, and the watercolor was harder than I anticipated. Turns out I like bits of each of them.
- Still life is fascinating! Why don't I do more of them?
- In any medium, ultramarine and burnt sienna are magic!
Still lifes are fascinating and I don’t know why I don’t do more of them either. You get to do the setup and use all your fruits and vegetables along with your dishes and tablecloths. Move things around and do another. The possibilities are endless.
ReplyDeleteThese both look great and it is awesome to see the side-by-side. Thank you for sharing all of this this! The layering (and blending) has been driving me NUTS. Having never worked with watercolor (LOL) I just thought I was doing something wrong...
ReplyDeleteI thought you handled layering and blending very skillfully. Gouache and watercolor seem to layer and glaze differently and I need more practice to get the hang of gouache. I think I like it, though.
DeleteI can't see much difference between the two. The first is brighter and the second is oh, artier, more sensitive. Of course that appears to be due to the steadiness and the patchiness of the blue in the cup. And of course which one was painted first would make a difference.
ReplyDeleteThe gouache was first.
DeleteGeez, I thought I left you a comment…sorry to hear you were sick, hope Dave didn’t catch it. Like Ken, I couldn’t really tell the difference between the two…
ReplyDelete