Paul’s 100 Day Challenge; Sketchbook

[PaulDidier]

Here’s today’s page. As I discussed with Dane, I used white charcoal and a little white gouache on this one.

 

 

[Josseline Jeria]

That’s true. Thanks for the reassurance. I hadn’t though about the travel, guess because that isn’t on the mind at the moment, given ya know what (avoiding that on these forums to keep all our spirits up 🙂 ). If you get some and find any winners, I’d appreciate you letting me know 🙂

I love that 3 value gouache study. Great design and composition, and use of values.

[Dana Smith]

Nice sketches! I admire your goal to share even the pages you like less; I’d like to do more that myself. 🙂

I’ve just joined and haven’t seen the Daily Drawing session. Will have to look for it!

[Josseline Jeria]

I really like your ink drawings. Pen really makes you develop your finesse with line work and since your can’t correct your mistakes, more feedback with how your line work is developing. I think the addition of the gouache is good.

[Lucas a.k.a “Roams”]

man i love ur hatching. i gotta learn how to do it. looks so freakin cool 😀

[PaulDidier]

Here’s Day 4’s gouache study taken further as I said I would.

 

 

[Joshua Jacobo]

Nice. Try to avoid too even spacing and placement of fingers. It tends to make them look unnatural. Try to group them up.

[Birgith Schei]

💐

[PaulDidier]

You’re right Joshua. I was paying too much attention to the reference I was working from. I need to use the reference but not let it dictate what I do.

[PaulDidier]

I’m afraid I’m going to have to do two days work tomorrow. I woke up with a killer headache. Haven’t been able to shake it and I just can’t concentrate on my work. I’m bummed but will try to compensate later tonight and tomorrow.

[Josseline Jeria]

Again, I really like this piece. Nice to see how you go about pushing it further. But I also still like where you had it previously. Do you usually take your goauche studies to this kind of finish or do some as more basic block in? I find the highlights in the water a bit distracting as it pulls my eyes away from the figure towards the water as the values are similiar there. But it could be that you wanted those values to read the same.

[Josseline Jeria]

Paul – that’s ohk 🙂 We’re bound to be met with things out of our control that impact our ability to do our work. Our health is important for mental clarity, wellness and creativity. I do hope you feel better soon. Perhaps your make up work can be very simple drawings? So you don’t bog yourself down with too much work.

[PaulDidier]

Thanks Josseline. I appreciate that and your critique. As I mentioned to Joshua, sometimes I pay too much attention to the reference. As to “usually taking my gouache to this kind of finish” I so seldom use gouache I don’t know how far I take them. That’s one reason I’m doing this challenge, to figure out how to use it and how far to render with it. I agree, I like the flat graphic shapes too. I’ve always enjoyed rendering things, but often take them too far. I’ve been trying to loosen up while recognizing that, after battling this tendency for years, I need to honor the fact that I do like to render things rather realistically. I’m trying to find a balance that I find enjoyable and rewarding.

[Josseline Jeria]

I do the same with paying too much attention to reference. I think we need to remind ourselves what the intention of the image is and what we want to say with it. That is part of what could help.

Ah yes that’s right, I now remember you mentioning so with gouache.

I think it ultimately matters what kind of artist you’d like to be. I think rendering things to a full finish can be done well and be artistically expressive, without being photographic. But of course with practice, you can’t these-ably do this with all your work – would be impossible with the reality of time and the important of getting overall mileage in. Maybe be selective with the pieces you want to render more, and maybe set a percentage of time you’d want to spend during a calendar month on a simple vs. mid vs. full finish eg. 50%, 30% 20%. just threw general numbers off my head. Maybe that could help?

• This reply was modified 4 years ago by Josseline Jeria.

[PaulDidier]

Here’s Day six.

Decided to look for some very basic instruction of gouache techniques to try to find some answers to some of my struggles. There seems to be very little on the basics of gouache which is where I’m rather clueless. By that I mean what should the consistency of the paint be? How do you blend gouache, both when it’s wet and when it’s dry? What kind and how large should the brushes be.

I finally remembered where I’d seen something like that in the past. So I checked out my old copy of the Famous Artist’s course. I remember doing some of the tutorials on gouache they had but it was years ago and I either didn’t get into it or was distracted by work or something, but I’m amazed at how good the tutorials are. So I’m going to do those tutorials from the beginning. This is an awesome art course.

Here’s my first effort.

 

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