Gouache Winter Study ❄️✨ 

Hey hey! Grab your favourite supplies and a cuppa, and join me for an art session! Today I'm practicing a medium I don't often use, but would like to get to know better. Gouache! I will be using a winter-themed still life to study, from a winter still life reference pack by Lane Brown. There's an autumn themed pack too, and they are both free! What's not to love about that? The subject I will be studying in this video is a still life of a bell and a pinecone. Simple at first glance, but complex in practice due to the very different nature of the two objects. The metal of the bell is very shiny, resulting in a high contrast with large blocks of dark darks, and blocks of very light lights. The pinecone is less reflective and has a darker local colour, leading to an overall darker value scheme with less contrast in the light. Initially going in to this I expected the bell to be the hardest for me to capture, but I actually found it was the pinecone! Although I started with a watercolour underpainting value study that roughly captured the zones of light and shadow (but not as dark as the final layers would be), I ended up losing the value structure when trying to capture the details of the blue light on the pinecone. So I'll be practicing more objects with dark local colours and less contrast. I learnt a lot even with this little still life, and have a clearer view on the areas I need to improve with gouache and painting in general. Onwards and upwards! ✨
On another note I absolutely LOVED mixing the gouache on my mini ceramic palettes. I've had these for ages and break out one or two for extra watercolour mixing space as needed. I use gouache straight out of the tube, and these palettes worked really well for that. Now I know what I'll be going back to on the next gouache adventure!
❄️MATERIALS❄️
Baohong Academy cold press cotton watercolour block
Daniel Smith watercolours: burnt sienna and burnt umber
Winsor and Newton designers gouache
ShinHan hybrid watercolour gouache
Winter reference pack by Lane Brown (free pack from Lane.Draws on gumroad)
❄️SOCIAL MEDIA❄️
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Find me @daenafae on Instagram and Tiktok where I post sketchbook pages, works in progress, daily stories, and answer questions.