Paul’s 100 Day Challenge; Sketchbook

[Ramona]

Especially the last portrait is really impressive, I love how every single stroke adds up to the volume of the face/ body, good job!

[ZHI SU]

Your lines are full of energy and the drawings are very powerful. Love the gouache too, nice gradation.

[PaulDidier]

Lucas, yeah the gouache is expensive for small tubes, but it goes a long way and generally you work rather small in gouache. I know what you mean about acrylics though. I have the same problem with the paint drying a different color. One of the reasons I’ve always preferred oils. But gouache and acrylic dry super fast so that’s a big plus if you need to give the painting to a client quickly. If I hadn’t wanted to work on a sketchbook I might have chosen acrylics for this challenge.

[PaulDidier]

Thanks Ramon That model is simply amazing. If you haven’t sketched him I highly recommend it. His name is Rajiv and there are quite a few photos of him on the NMA model page. Whether figure or face you can’t go wrong with him.

Zhi Su, I appreciate that comment about my lines. I love quick gestures. Probably because I had a couple of great teachers who just worked the heck out of us, having their students do ultra-quick gestures, (10 – 20 seconds), until we were just exhausted. Most students hated it, but I really started liking it. I’ve always seemed to have trouble focusing. I was diagnosed with severe ADHD a few years ago which probably explains it. At any rate, occasionally, (not nearly often enough), I’ll get into a “hyper-focus” state where I can REALLY focus and get things done. Doing quick gestures helps me do that. But sometimes I worry that my lines are a bit all over the place. So thanks for the nice comment.

[PaulDidier]

Couldn’t get a finished gouache today. Here’s a warmup. Sharpie on bond. 18 x 24″

 

[Ramona]

Thanks for the model suggestion, I’ll definitely include him in my next studies.

Your hand gestures look really cool here, I think drawing hands is such a difficult topic. Do you have a particular method for drawing hands? I can see some really rough gesture lines beneath, but you do not seem to need much structure beforehand, like in case of the bigger one in the center.

[John Huisman]

These are awesome hands, good motion!

[PaulDidier]

Here’s my gouache study for day 16.

 

[Joshua Jacobo]

Nice work!

[DeanGiberson]

Great hands! You really get a sense of volume.

[PaulDidier]

Thanks Ramona, John, Dean and Joshua.

Ramona, I do have a way of laying in hands that might be helpful. Let me sketch out an example and if it looks like it might help I’ll post it.

Joshua, have you worked in gouache? If so I’d appreciate any insights. After doing some studies that I felt good about, I did this portrait from a photo and found myself falling into the same gouache issues that have always caused problems. The good thing is, I think I’m aware of them now and can hopefully correct them. The main problems I see happening are;

1. I’m too !&!$!$! IMPATIENT! I don’t let the gouache that I’ve put down dry completely before I start painting with new gouache on top or adjacent to it. Because of this I think I’m applying new gouache that has a certain relationship to the existing layer’s value only to have the existing layer dry completely and it’s a different value than I thought.
2. Getting my palette messy so my mixed values are no longer consistent.  Again, this makes me guess as to which paint will dry to which value. Ideally I should take a dab of paint, let it dry and compare it to my painting to check the values but because I’m so IMPATIENT I don’t do that.
3. I try to stretch my paint. I premix what I think are decent amounts of values, but when I start to run low on one. instead of mixing more, I add water and end up painting with it too thinly.

What do you think? If you have familiarity with gouache I’d appreciate any input. I can’t tell you how many times I reworked that face. As a result it’s much more splotchy than I’d intended.

[KatherineBoyd]

I love the energy you bring to each object.

[PaulDidier]

Here’s day17. I’m thinking of doing another gouache portrait and thought doing a value sketch might help.

 

[PaulDidier]

Here’s my gouache painting for day18. I think doing the prisma sketch helped. I also went slower and waited for the gouache to dry before applying new gouache.

 

[Joshua Jacobo]

Great picture. The secondary light source from the right seems as intense as the primary in the head yet less intense than the primary on the coat, which could be clarified. I would brighten the light side of the face or knock down the value of the secondary light on the face.

[Author]

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