Transcripts
1. Intro: Hi guys, my name is Wero and I'm a Berlin-based happy artist who has a great passion for gouache. So, I invite you to my first Skillshare class, which is on how to paint magical portrays using gouache paint and colored pencils. So, that by the end of this class, you'll be able to create something like that. The magical portrait of someone that you love, someone that you admire, it may be someone from the family or a celebrity. I will give you my fun and easy tips and tricks on how to harness gouache paint, so that you're able to create a portrait of your own. They say that gouache is the sibling of watercolor but a few may get really discouraged too soon after their first trial and error with this medium. That's because gouache is a bit less known and it behaves in a slightly different manner than water color for example. In my opinion, gouache has some really awesome properties that I would like to show you in this class. I will guide you step-by-step in explaining to you the great advantages of painting with gouache paint, by showing you some of its properties and also giving you tips on how to handle this paint. We will also cover what materials I recommend most, from paper types to brands of gouache, anything that you really need for that project. I will also show you gouache paint behaves and there will be a pretty nice big section on blending and also how to mix skin tones with gouache paints. Finally, we will paint together a portrait of a person that is important to you. This class is for anyone who's just genuinely interested in gouache paint. Whether you're a beginner and you're just starting off, you want to learn the medium right from the beginning, or whether you consider yourself a more advanced user of gouache. In my first class about gouache, everyone is welcome. I'm sure you can find to learn something new in this class. Also, I warmly invite you to subscribe, to follow me. Because I'm planning more classes to come, and gouache will be definitely one of the top tags that I would like to investigate a little bit more in those classes. So, we can start and then the next video, I would like to show you the materials that I'll be using for this project. So, let's get started.
2. Materials: To get you started, let me tell you what materials I would recommend you to acquire to sketch and to paint. Here are some of my most favorite supplies for creating quash artworks. When it comes to paper, I like to use both hot and cold press. Usually in sheets which I can detach from the block and tape it down with a masking tape. From hot press, I have Fabriano and from cold press I'm using Canson and Strathmore water colored paper. At first, when I was more of a beginner in painting with squash, I use the Canson Excel mixed-media sketchbook. I don't really like it for watercolor, but I think for quash, it's okay. You will notice that they're all watercolor paper, so they're thicker and the ones that I present here have at least 300 gram. However, any paper with the weight of above 200 should be fine. Even though quash is also water-based medium, we tend to use less water with it than with traditional water color and work with thicker paint to get that's opaque and not to finish that I really loved so much. As for pencils, I use an ordinary HB pencil. However, my most favorite way to create my underinsured drawings for the paintings is to actually use a colored pencil. I most often pick a red or pink color. My absolute favorites is the Prismacolor, verithin pencil and the colored Toscan brush. It was a coincidence and that I acquired this pencil as it was part of a bigger Prismacolor set. I also got a couple of eraser here, but nothing fancy. For this project, you will also need a few vibrant colored pencils that you will use to add more detail and texture to your final portrait. I'm using polychromos and Prismacolor pencils in a variety of colors. You can use any colored pencils that you currently own. The brushes set, I'm using are all synthetic. I have one bigger brush size 8. I also have one medium brush size 4. I think that's the one that I use most frequently. I also have one smaller brush, in this case, size 0, to get finer details. Brushes can be really a matter of your personal preference. Now, choosing the right quash paint can be your to be or not to be when it comes to painting with quash. I remember when I first started, I bought the cheapest quash paint I could get, immediately in the sets of 12 different colors. Well, I wasn't happy with their quality at all. They were very streaky, the pigment wasn't rich, and there was even some oily film when I open the tube. If I could turn back the time, I was buy fewer tubes, primary colors and white and not that cheap, perhaps. The brands I'm using for this project are Shmincke. I have both Academy and designers quash, as well as rear colors, extra fine quality quash, which I was really lucky to get in those handy jars. You don't need all the colors out there. The most important ones are, of course white. You're going to need a lot of white while painting with squash. You need the primaries, so yellow, red and blue. Especially for a portraits, I would really recommend for this purpose to also get burnt umber, burnt sienna, and perhaps some more fancy violet or lilac. You will also need the pellets to mix the paint. I have some pellets that I just bought from the store. But for that purpose, you can even use a normal plate from your kitchen. Once you've got your colors mixed up, the last thing that you need are a few containers with water, a paper towel or a cloth, and you are ready to go. We can start painting. But before we do, let me wrap everything up for you. You need to watercolor or a mixed-media paper, at least 200 grams. I will be using a thicker watercolor paper, 300 grams. Then for the sketch, you need some pencils and erasers. You also need for this project, colored pencils. Then for the painting, you want synthetic brushes. I would recommend the sizes that I have here are 0, 4, and 8. But those are just examples and it's a matter of your personal preference. Then of course, you need the quash paints. Yes, it doesn't really matter which brand you want to buy as long as you have especially white, then I recommend primary colors, so red, yellow, and blue. Particularly for this project, we are going to be painting a portray. I really recommend getting the following colors, burnt umber, burnt sienna and violent. Last but not least, to keep the space cleaned and the painting comfy, then you need the pellet or a plate from your kitchen eve to mix the colors. You need some water containers to keep your brushes clean, and you may want to also to use paper towels or a cloth. In the next lesson, I would briefly like to talk about quash paint and it's properties.
3. Basic Properties of Gouache: You will learn most about the properties of gouache, why they're actually painting, but in this video I wanted to sum up for you my top important properties of gouache that you just need to be aware of. Number one, gouache is water-based. You can reuse to paint, that's also good news. You're not going to be wasting a lot of paint, but there's the risk. You can also reactivate the layers underneath. So, with gouache, you have to commit at some point. We will see that especially when we're painting the skin in our portrait. If you work too much with your brush, if you add too much water, then you will be reactivating what's underneath and blending it in, and that can be really problematic. That's something that you have to also get used to. Number two, gouache is opaque. I think this is the property that I like about gouache most. You can lay it much thicker than water color and it dries smart. The layers that you're adding, they can be multiple layers. So, it's very easy to, for instance, correct your mistakes. With watercolor it would have been much more difficult. You might try to remove the water to leave the paint that you put too much by mistake. With gouache, it's fine. You just let it dry and then you add some extra layer to cover up your mistakes. That's really cool. Number three, gouache changes color as it dries. That one is really important because this one is probably the most surprising. You've got to remember that like light colors can go darker once they dry and then the other way round, dark can go light. So, it's really important especially when you're painting the skin. Because you might want to achieve a lighter skin tone, but after it dries in five minutes or 10 minutes or so, you might notice the face starts to look as if it had some bad makeup because it's lighter when darker. But that as well you will learn in practice. Last, but not least number four, gouache is really great to blend. Here are just some techniques. They are pretty well known already with watercolor and acrylic paint. Wet-in-wet, wet surface, wet paint. It behaves pretty much like watercolor with this one than just laying flat color technique. Pretty popular with acrylic. Just one color and next to each other without really blending too much to achieve a gradation of the color. Then last but not least, I think it's my most favorite technique of gouache, is the over-paint technique. Imagine there's a yellow, there's a red, and then you dab your brush with some water and you put this water and your brush right in between those two colors, and then they start to blend to get some orange hue in between. It's very easy to blend with gouache. We will see that in practice. Speaking of blending and mixing, the next section I'm really excited about it. Is a pretty comprehensive section on how to create and blend and mix skin tones.
4. Mixing Skin Tones: In this video, I would like to show you how I'm mixing the skin tones with gouache paint. I will show you both how I mix colors for light skin, as well as for darker skins. You can buy ready-made mixes, for example, I have here gouache paint in the color peach. Very often, it's just called skin tone. If you want to, you can buy one of those. But in this video, I would like to show you that you can do without it. It's enough if you just start with your primary set and white. Out of the most basic colors, you can mix very radiant and very nicely looking skin tones with just little paint. For this purpose, I recommend the following colors. Some yellow. I have raw sienna here, but any yellow would do. Then you also need a red color. Here I have scarlet. Again, any red would do. I also like to use vermilion. I will show you some more fancy mixes with this color later on. Already using red and yellow and adding some white will give you a very nice skin tone. But sometimes the color is too vibrant or orangy because indeed, when you mix yellow and red you get orange. So, to desaturate it a little bit, I recommend having some form of blue. I also have ultramarine here. It doesn't matter. For this purpose, I'm using just some light blue. Very basic blue color. This will be already enough for lighter skin tones along with white. Then for darker skin tones, an extra color that I recommend would be burnt umber. That's all that you need. You only need those five, or even without a blue you would do. So, some yellow, some red, blue, burnt umber, and white.
5. Lighter Skin: For lighter skin tone, let's start with our yellow, add some red, and here it's trial and error. I'm adding a little bit more yellow here, and then gouache, it's very important to add white. So, I'm taking a whole bunch of white in here, and this would be our basic mix of some yellow, some red, and white. You will see that it looks a little bit pinkish. So, what we're going to do, we will add just a little bit of blue. In this case, I have it a little bit too much, but for the sake of this presentation, this could actually work very well for shadows. It is much more desaturated. To fix this, I'm adding again. Going to put here some red, cleaning my brushes I go, and a little bit more yellow. This is still quite saturated, but already looks much better here. It's less pinkish, more less of a piggy, less of gray, and now, the magic starts, so to say, when I add more white. Remember, how gouache paint behaves, and that even if you think that the paint that you mixed is very, what do we have here? Very dark, it will probably, when it dries, get lighter. Then, the other way around. If it's too dark, so dark will go lighter, and light might go darker. I'd like to add a little bit more yellow to this mix. Ah, now, it's perfect. Now, I really like it. If it's a little bit too intense, you either add more water, then it becomes a little bit more translucent, and if you would like to keep it more opaque, because I think that's one of the best things about gouache, then again, you add some. Ah, this is great. This is actually perfect than the Epsom white, and then it's still opaque. So, as you see, trial and error. Ah, this one is great. Maybe a little bit more yellow, uh-huh, and you play around till you're happy. Ah, this is fantastic. That was our basic mix of red and yellow with a little bit of white, then we desaturated the color by adding more blue. We could have added also more white. This would be a very nice color for shadows. Then we again added a little bit more of red, desaturated with white, played around with adding some yellow. You see, trial and error. Then the end, we get this beautiful light skin tone. Okay? To speed up the process a little bit, I already pre-mixed another color combination that was used using an extra color called burnt sienna. It's a very, well, I would even say like an Indian red look. On its own, it looks like that. I hope you can see that. So, quiet brownish red, you can use it on its own by adding some line work to your portrait or doing the creases around the eyes, around the mouth. Then I added some white, and it got a little bit better, more tanned. If it's still too pinkish or too brownish for you, you can add again your yellow. I added some raw sienna, and I ended up with this beautiful color. If it's a little bit too yellowish, you go back to burnt sienna, and this is how you get skin color that looks a little bit more tanned. Now, let's jump in to the next lesson where I'm showing you how to paint darker skin tones.
6. Darker Skin: Now I wanted to show you how to mix color for darker skin. You can use the mixes that you've done so far, and simply add some burnt umber, this one, this dark color. Take just a little bit, and let's mix it here to the very first mix that we have done at the beginning, it already has some white in. We get a very nice brown color. We can always add a little bit more red. This one is gorgeous. Again, tans. If this is to red, then there you guessed it, back to yellow. Some more yellow, just a little bit. Yes, this is less red. For darkened skin tones, you will see you don't need to use that much white, obviously. Even more yellow. Now, this is not dark enough for me, back to burnt umber. It's a little bit too brown. Adding some more yellow. This is nice as well. Now, I'm mixing with raw sienna, the one from this mix. It's a big experiment. Normally, you do your mixes on the palette of your choice or maybe you do it on a big plate. Actually, let me show, you have been painting yesterday, this is usually what my plate looks like. So, you make some color decisions, and then it's a big happy accidents, and in this way it's exactly the same exercise, you just see how it goes.
7. Other Skin Colors: Okay. Now, I wanted to show you some also very interesting skin tones that you can achieve by mixing less popular colors. So, for one mixture for example I have naples yellow light and magenta. Then for a very beautiful darker skin tone, we will still use burnt umber and this cobalt violet hue, a gorgeous color. Let's start with the lighter one first. I have here magenta and naples yellow. Let's add some water and join them together. This basic mixture will look like that. Look how beautiful. It's already a very nice skin tone in itself. Naples yellow already has some whites in it. That's why it's not really necessary to add too much white in here, and you can create a very nice-looking opaque skin tone. If you add more magenta, it will be more pinkish and if you again make some more yellow than it will be more yellowy. I think this is the ultimate light skin tone here. Now, to see a little bit more magic with darker skin tones. I'm using this cobalt violets, adding some water, preparing it on my pellets, and adding some burnt umber just a little bit. I hope you can see that. It's like a brown but with a violet hue. I think it's gorgeous. If you add a little bit more violet you can also use it for makeup, for the lips around the eyes, it's a beautiful shade on its own. If it's to reddish, you're going back adding some more burnt umber. Here you can experiment with adding some white act this to pink color a little bit more of burnt umber. Yeah, that looks good. Adding some more white adds more opacity to the paint, and there you go. There's one more combination that I wanted to show you. It's using vermilion read. I really like vermilion red because it's a little bit more orange. It creates very unexpected effects. So, I prepared here some vermilion red in my pellets, and I wanted to show you how great it looks combined with burnt umber, the darker color and with a little bit of white. So, first let's see this vermilion color on its own. Quite orangey. Now, we are adding a little bit of burnt umber to the mix. Again, I'm going to use a little bit more paint, mix it together with vermilion. Now, it's a little bit thicker because the last time I added quite some water, very chocolaty, very good for darker skin tones of brown with the hue of red. Now, I wanted to show you what effect you can create if you add some white. I think some whites to the mix. Let's see how it looks. Yes, it's a very beautiful one. Looks kind of like chocolate. Very good for some axon's, very good for freckles, very good when you're drawing those creases on the eyelids. The nose underneath. See, that should be the nose and then for the rest, you can just use the mixtures that you created before. So, that should be the nose, and then it's always good to put some whites, dub it in here, and simply let it blend.
8. The Skin: Summary +Demo: So, now having all the colors on our class, I'm just going draw some basic shapes for the face and let's see it in practice now. Some lips, starting with lighter skin, a mix of yellow, a mix of red, and a little bit of white painting over. Even without cleaning my brush, dabbing it in the mix for the darker skin tone, and doing the same. Covering all space, just reminding you that dark can go lighter when a dry eyes and light can go darker. Every time I start putting color onto the face, I am already thinking about where's light, where is some hollow areas. There's usually more light on the forehead, and a little bit less on the edges marking the nose, the eye sockets. Here for the darker skin tone, I would like to make it a little bit darker. Adding some extra chartreuse, blending using its just enough actually to use the brush. Be careful with adding too much water because you can very easily reactivate quash. It's very good for layering, but it's also easy to destroy what you have just done. So, sometimes it's good just to let it be without overdoing it. Getting rid of some harder edges, blending in, looking frequently at your reference photo, checking where the shadow is and where the lightest areas are. Once you're done with this exercise, just remember that this pellet is never really wasted. It's good to have a few pellets or a few plates from the kitchen, go to a key, and buy some more and just to store it. Next time you want to use it or if you want to continue to use this paint for pinning our portrayed for the project just keep it. Let it be you can then reactivated with water or even sprinkled with some water and you're ready to go. Let's summarize what we learned about mixing skin tones with gouache paint. All you really need is some red, some blue to desaturate the color, as well as some yellow for darker skin tones. You need burnt umber, and to create lighter shades keeping the opacity of the paint, you need white in order to create lighter skin tones. All you really need is the red, yellow, and white mixture to the saturated. To create shadows, you can always add some blue, doesn't matter which blue, adding more red creates more of a tanned. Adding more whites again back to the base tone. If it's a little bit too pink, you can just try adding a little bit more yellow, and then again add it some water. So, for example, this color swatch is simply due to the diluted in water. For the most ultimate light skin tone, to the mix that I just told you about you add some white. If you would like to paint the portrait of a person that is quite tanned, or a little bit darker, then it's good to buy a color called burnt sienna. This is what this color looks in its purest form, and then adding more white creates the following effect. If it's still a little bit too reddish or too pinkish, you can keep adding your yellow. Once you exhausted all the color combinations with the most ordinary colors, maybe you would like to buy some paints, that are a little bit less known. Perhaps, you have Magenta, and perhaps you would also like to buy Naples Yellow. With or without white, it's optional. It creates a very peachy skin tone, a very healthy looking skin. If you'd like color in general, and you would like a little bit more vibrant colors in your portrait, especially for the shadows or darker skin tones, then I really recommend getting some form of violet. Here I have cobalt violet, and then mix it with burnt umber, keep adding some white or just keeping it as it is, and adding its purely as accents to your portrait. For darker skin, you definitely need this chocolate brown color, burnt umber. Again, experiment at some red, keep adding some white, more yellow, back to burnt umber, and see what's your results you're going to get. My cube with a nose here, and you can always expand your pole by add some extra colors. I really like the color called vermilion, you can use it this makeup, you can use it to color the lips, all around the eyes, and it creates a very nice, brown, darker skin tone with more of a red undertone, if you mix those two colors together. Adding more white, will even give you a very nice chocolate color. Here is the end result. I even painted two very simple portraits. To see how I used all the colors that we mixed together in this class, lighter skin tones and darker skin tones. Even their hair is painted in those colors that are absolutely necessary for the skin tones that I just mentioned. So far, light skin row sienna or light ochre, they very similar, and for darker skin tones burn umber. There you go! This is your summary. Do not throw this away.Do not throw the paint away the teacher's used. I invite you to do this exercise, to play around with the colors, to mix them back and forth, test them on your scrap paper, and then to label them that it's really important because Ultimately, you might forget which colors you used and then you're wondering, and then you regret that you don't remember how you arrived at the certain color. So, label it properly, and keep it. Keep it for future reference, so that next time you are doing your portrait, you have this cheat sheet. Now that you know how to paint the skin, it's time to start painting your own portrait. So, let's start coloring.
9. The Sketch: Now the time has come to choose a photo for your project, the portrait that you'd like to paint. I always wanted to paint a portrait of my brother, that's this picture from long time ago when we were kids. When I'm done with the portrayed I can give it to him as a gift. So, when you're done, when you have your photo, there are a few variants of how you can trace it onto watercolor paper. There's the easy way which is tracing. I'm not really against of tracing. In the past I used to do kind of tracing anyway. Meaning, I took a ruler and I measured every centimeters so that the proportions of the person that I was painting were perfect, and I think tracing is exactly the same thing. It just takes a little bit faster. If you wish not to trace, then feel free to make your own drawing even without any reference photo from your memory. So it's up to you. You can either draw it by yourself or you can trace it. When I trace the picture, I made sure it's firmly taped to the back of my paper. What I did, I traced only the proportions that are crucial, so that this person is recognizable. So, I traced everything that I would measure anyway. Meaning, here the height, the length of the face, the width of the face. For me it was also very important to trace where the eyes are, and the nose, and the mouth, so that the proportions are right. Initially, I was using a colored pencil that was a little bit lighter. It was pink, and then when I trace I also took already some time to fill in the gap so to say. Right now I think I will also take a little bit more time to make the sketch a little bit more complete. So you may want to go ahead and mark those parts of the body that are naturally a little bit darker anyway, and this will definitely be the line of the eyelashes, for example. This will also be the pupils on the eyes of the person. You may want to make it a little bit more prominent. Just remember that the gouache is very opaque anyway, so there will be this risk of coloring over the lines but at least for the initial blocking of the color. It's really useful to have those areas a little bit more distinct. Then, also the nostrils. I only traced the spot where they should be. Now, I'm looking at my picture, at my reference photo, and making sure that the shape of the nostrils is just like in the picture or very close to the picture. Another line that has to be a little bit more prominent is the line of the mouth. So, again, looking very carefully at my photograph. I'm blocking in more shadow here, a darker color. A bit of teeth in here as well. Coloring in those areas that are the darkest. Then it's going to be easier for me to color, to block the color in. So a little bit underneath the lip. You cannot release much that's much of the colored pencil that's why I prefer it to a normal HB pencil, but depending on what colored pencils you're using. Maybe you want to rest your hand on a cloth or on a paper towel if you feel you might smudge a little bit too much. Then, of course, I'm checking if the outline of the face is correct. So I'm fixing here, always comparing, checking if the proportions are right, filling in any gaps. In any case, I'm not really someone who would paint very realistic portraits. I prefer to do portraits that are a little bit more lose. So I think at that stage it really shouldn't matter if the person that you're sketching in preparation for your painting, if it's 100% accurate map. They should be quite similar, of course. You should be able to recognize that person but I wouldn't say that you should worry about being super realistic here. To make you feel a little bit more secure about painting your portrait, I invite you to the next video where I'm presenting you my own technique that I have developed to put in darker and lighter areas on the skin, so that when you move to the painting part it's going to be much much easier for you.
10. Light & Shadow: So, I think now I'm going to leave it as it is. There's maybe one more thing that might be useful for the next stage, which we'll be blocking in the color for the skin. Namely, taking another color, perhaps blue. I'm going to take polychromos pencil for that because Prismacolor is wax based. So, nothing too fatty. Then perhaps, it will be more helpful for you if you again, have a look at the photo and trace those areas in that other color. Do not worry, it will be covered by gouache anyway, that will be in the shadow. So, for example, I'm looking at the values in this photograph and I am seeing here underneath, there will be some shadow, there will be also some shadow below the lip. In general, there's some shadow on the lower parts of the face. So, I will put in some blue here to the cheeks area, those hollow two areas below the cheeks. Some elements are a little bit darker on the, here the ears. I think naturally, alongside the hairline, there will be some shadow too and even if there isn't, do not be scared to experiment and to put some elements of shadow or some elements on the skin that are not even there on your reference photo. You don't have to and I'm really not encouraging you here to be super realistic. There is also a little bit more shadow here, the creases of the eyes, and then where you have the eye sockets, and the side of the nose, seems that the light is coming more from here. So, try also to identify where the light might be coming from. You very often see it on the nose. There's some shadow here underneath the nose and around the nostrils. Some below the eyes, as well and again this left side, from my perspective at least, the left side of the nose and I think on the sides of the face. Yeah, these will be the most important areas. if you'd like to take it even more to the next level, you can also use yet another color. Here, I have some yellow and I am identifying those spots on the face that are getting most of the light. So, like for example, see the cheeks? You can even color them and they're going to be covered with goauche paint anyway. Here, I can also see some light. This technique has really helped me a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot. I was always really jealous of people who can paint portraits, I thought, "Oh, my God, I will never paint like that." But then I developed this technique that helps me to break down the picture basically, into smaller elements. It's a little bit like Lego blocks, which we actually played a lot when we were kids. So, putting my Lego blocks in and then when I'm putting the paint on, it will be much much easier. Here on that ear, much more light indeed. So, it seems really that the light is falling from here. A little bit on the hair as well, but hair is peanuts, I think the most difficult part or most challenging part is the face. However, you don't have to worry about anything, you already know how to mix skin colors from the previous lessons. In the next block, I will show you how very easily, now that you have done that little colorful cheat sheet, how to blacken the color of the skin on your portrait.
11. Stretching The Paper: You can start painting straightaway. So, once you have your sketch done, you can just go for it and start putting paint. However, we are working on watercolor paper. So, if you have some experience with watercolor paper, you know that it might buckl at times. It's especially important when you're painting with watercolor paint and with gouache, I have to admit it that it's not that big of a deal. For example, here are some paintings I've done last month and I didn't tape them at all. Some of them are a little bit wavy, they're not super flat, but they're okay. You don't really have to tape or stretch your canvas. But in case you would like to stretch your canvas or learn how to stretch it or you're going to be using some elements of watercolor with your gouache, I want to show you here how I stretch my paper, okay? So, if you'd like to stretch your canvas, your paper, and tape it on some surface, then this is how it goes. You need water, I recommend a little bit wider brush, and I bought here a masking tape within ordinary store for building. In Germany we have Bauhaus. Very simple masking tape. I developed this trick that has worked for me really very, very dreamy. Mainly, I have this board here which in reality is actually the back of an IKEA frame for photos for pictures. It's really inexpensive. You take this out and you have a board. I know that some people also tape directly to the table but then the advantage of this board is that you can move it around. So, I'm going to be using this board. This is how I stretch my paper. I take the watercolor paper with the sketch, my big brush, and then I really nicely dip it in the water. I put the water at the back of this paper making sure that it's everywhere. It's in the middle, it's to the sides, soaking it in so that the water is absorbed throughout. Then I have my masking tape ready. I flip it over, I put it in the position where I want it and then I'm using the masking tape to tape it down to either my table or to my board. So, this is what it looks like. I can move it around, I can even put it somewhere, deal with another project in between. I think it's super handy. Then sometimes once you're done with this process, wetting it from the back and then taping it, you might notice that the paper starts to buckle. You either just let it be, let it to dry, maybe you do it before going to sleep and then you leave it overnight. Or, another alternative is that you take it to the bathroom, you take your hair dryer and you just hair dry it, so that you get rid of the moisture in the paper. This is the canvas that is ready to be painted.
12. Face Shadows: We finally came to the painting part. I know that when it comes to painting schemes, some people have different techniques. Some of them just start with layering the first base of a skin tone, that's it, but the one that I would like to show you is where you start with the shadows. So, you can use the mixes that we mixed in the lesson about mixing skin tones or the way I'm going to proceed I have this beautiful violet color. If you have a darker violet you can also use it and mix it with white. So that it's not so vibrant. This one has a nice lilac color and I will use this color to put in the shadows and also using my plate to dilute the color a little bit on the way. Remember when we did this color for like a cheat sheets with the colored consoles, we analyzeD the picture which I have always in front of me for the shadows and we mark them with a blue colored pencil. Now, it will be very handy because the cheat sheet is already in and all you need to do is to block in the color now. Don't worry if you make a mistake like here, you can always cover it with an additional layer of paint or you can just use your finger and that's actually the one thing that is really nice about gouache, you don't have to worry about any mistakes because gouache is very easy to fix. As I go, I keep comparing my reference photo and mimicking it onto paper. I recommend you that for those areas that have a little bit more the size of shadows like here underneath the chin, you use a little bit more of the paint on your brush and for the ones that will be covered with your more natural looking as can tell later on, you can go a little bit more translucent and that's again the beauty of gouache that you can always dilute it with water. So I did my brush with a little bit of water here and I'm diluting it. In case you got too much paint into your brush, you can always clean it and with a clean brush that has some moisture, some water you can keep on dragging that paint that is already there, that's very convenient. Then here for this shadow on the chin, the bottom of the face, I put a layer that is a little bit more transparent. One way of painting with gouache is actually to indeed put those thicker layers of paint and then to create or try to create this poster effect. This is not my intention today, that's why, for example, here in the throat having wet my brush, I'm going in again and using water see how easy it is to reactivate gouache. So you don't really need to take any extra paint for this stage where we are adding the shadows you can even just dab. Yeah exactly dab the brush in the water and reactivate it and then drag it down. You also have to remember for the future that the thicker the paint you're going to layer on your portrait, the bigger the risk later that when you put another layer on, for example, your actual skin tone, then those thicker layers of paint that are underneath, the hair is a very very big chance that they will get reactivated. As far as I remember my first portrait with gouache was terrible, maybe I show it to you later I have it somewhere in my drawer. But I thought I will never ever learn gouache and come back to this medium and now from the perspective of time I know that I should have just done those mistakes. Gouache is just a different medium than watercolor and you really cannot skip this learning process. Okay, I think for now I establish my shadows and even though it doesn't look very inviting, I'm asking you to bear with me because I think every gouache knows every watercolor painting. It looks terrible at the beginning and then the magic starts to happen, you keep adding more layers right and it gets prettier and prettier and you're getting much more proud of it.
13. Base Skin Color: Hey, guys. So now, it's getting serious. Now, we're ready to paint over the entire skin. So, go ahead and premix your skin tones. If you want to use those colors that are ready premixed, they're called skin color, then by all means do that. Do that. So, prepare the colors on your palette. I'm using actually both the premix colors on this little palette here as well as the big IKEA plate. I also have some extra white. It's always very safe to have some more white, and there's even a tube waiting here in case I need more. I have my reference picture. I'm going to be using still those bigger brush, size eight, and just make sure that you have enough water. It's a really good idea as well to test your colors. So, once you mix, test what they look like and wait a little bit, because once they dry, they might look lighter once you put them. Maybe you can see it a little bit better here. This used to be much lighter. You can maybe see it in those elements that are still a little bit watery. But once it dries, lighter usually dries darker. So, you might end up painting over your portrait, your face, and it looks all nice and peachy, and then it dries and it looks as if someone had some bad makeup on the face. So, just anticipate for that. At first, to play it a little bit safe, I'm going to use paint with less water, because I already put it some paint for the shadows here. Then this way, I will already block in some color, but minimizing the use of water at the beginning will also minimize the risk that you're going to reactivate the color that is underneath. I'm using some base skin tone, the most neutral, so not too light, not to dark, like all the medium tones, and filling out all those areas that are still white. At the same time, the highlights that I marked, remember, in the colored pencil, I'm going to leave them out and I will put in there a color that is a little bit lighter too. So, now remembering where my highlights were, I left out a little bit of blank spaces in those spots where I marked at. I will use the base color but use some more water. I will mix a little bit more white into it and then go over those areas that should be highlights. So, in the meantime, I'm also ready to cover those lilac violet areas where the shadow is. I will be using for that a little bit darker skin tone, the one that I have mixed here. I'm not really using a lot of water here. Again, not to reactivate the paint. Exactly, not to reactivate the paint. But the violet serves as a very nice underpinning color, and it will also be again, like a cheat sheet for me to know where those shadows should be. I also gently move to the layer of the shadow. There's less and less paint. If it's still too much, you can use a paper towel to get rid of the excess. And I'm trying to blend them in. Do not worry that that looks quite light compared to the shadow that has already dried. Because as you remember, this will still dry and get darker. Another useful tip is that when I'm doing my brush strokes, I'm trying also to follow the shape of the face, so here, the cheek for example, I'm mimicking in the way the shape of the cheek in here. Just so that everything is clear, this stage right here is just blocking in the color for the skin. Now, we move on to the more elaborate part of refining the highlights and everything else.
14. Face Highlights: So, we can proceed to the next stage, and the skin tone that we have, now we need to create a little bit more highlights, a lighter version of that color. So, go ahead, take the white that is already on your palette. Use some more water and make some nice light skin tone with more white. What I'm going to do now with this color, also having my picture here to compare. I'm rechecking again where those lighter areas should be, and I'm just putting them in. So, you will notice those shapes are pretty easy, they look very simple. We just want, so that the main features of the face remain, retain their shape, so to say. So everyone has a distinctive chin, for example. You also got to pay attention to the cheeks, how prominent the cheeks are and that will also manifest in highlights very often. Then, also the nose, the forehead. You will also see some highlights below here, the eyebrows. A bit on the side of the face and also don't forget the ears. One ear then the other side, too, and a little bit on the throat as well. Now, the paint hasn't dried yet, I'm cleaning my brush in the water, getting rid of the excess of the water, and now I will try to blend everything in. So, since the brush is still a little bit damp, it might also reactivate the layers that are underneath, but that is actually fine. We want to blend a little bit more. If you feel that some might just look a little bit too rough, you can wet the brush but just a little bit, and then when the brushes are a little bit more wet, it will be super easy to reactivate the paint. Just be careful. Another thing with gouache, but you will probably have already figured that out by now, is that you can easily overdo it. What does it mean? That means I can blend in here forever, two days, three days, I'm joking, but you can fall into this trap of blending, blending, blending. Gouache can be always reactivated, so you can really blend forever. At some point, you got to commit, and just let it be, let it go, and say, ''Okay. This is it. I'm happy with how it looks.'' Remember, this class, we'll be using also colored pencils, and I will show you some ways of fixing the imperfections of gouache with colored pencils afterwards. About this over eagerness that I just told you about, make sure you do not blend, if you're happy, for example here with the shadow, let it be. Once you start blending, maybe we'll get everything flat again. I know it's hard, it comes all with practice, that's why you have to make more than one portrait. With every single one of them, you will learn something new, and you will see that every single one will get better because you will learn about how the paint behaves. I'm also taking some of pure white here, and marking the most prominent highlights that I can see on the photo especially here at the tip of the nose, then some on the chin. In case it's dried out a little bit, you can always sprinkle it with some water. It will not be pure white anyway, even though now it looks pretty light, but you will see a few more minutes or even seconds, it's going to blend in and go a little bit darker because there are layers underneath. We see a little bit more on the cheeks, eyebrows, those underneath parts, and a little bit more on the other cheek, too. Remind yourself where the lights might be coming from.
15. Darker Face Details: You will notice that painting with gouache demands some patience. It's the same with water color. A little bit different but still the same. You got to wait, you got to keep blending, you got to keep adding the layers. So, if you choose to do the refinements with more gouache paint, we can do this together now. It will be very handy at this stage to switch to a brush that is a little bit thinner and to use the paint that is a little bit darker. We will be refining those lines that are here in the shadow again. The nostrils, around the eyes and around the face. For this purpose, use this paint that is a little bit darker. I did one with a little bit more red. You can also mix some a little bit burnt umber into the mix, and even the violet again. The violet of your choice or some purple. Maybe you've noticed that, right at the beginning I took just a little bit of that darker paint, and as I was proceeding, even though the paint was already quite dry, the one here, I've managed to lift some paints nevertheless. That resulted in a new color on my brush. I keep just rolling with it so to say and keep blending it in, especially those edges those that are a little bit too sharp, I try to blend them out. If I cannot do that just with a dry brush, then you can always dab your brush in a little bit of water and keep blending in. Here for example, I drag some of that lighter paints that was underneath, to create the shape of the eyelid. At the same time to blend in that a little bit sharper stroke that was right above. I would say our skin is ready. You can leave the rest to do in colored pencils. Just remember that you don't have to be perfect with gouache.
16. Finishing The Face: At this stage I would say, my skin is ready. I'm going to leave it as it is and maybe add some extra dimension with colored pencils. But what I'm going to probably do now is blocking in the color for the hair, for the eyes, painting the eyebrows and looking in the color also the clothes and perhaps you also want to add some background. I'm done with the gouache paint, I blocked in all the colors that I wanted including the clothes, including the eyes, the mouth. I actually left out some elements that I'm not feeling very comfortable about. For example, I don't think that you have to add a lot of details on the mouth like to paint every tooth. I'm not very good at drawing teeth and if you also feel that you would like to leave something out, then feel free to do that. You don't have to do every single detail. Now, the next part would be to add some more dimension and some more texture with colored pencils.
17. The Background: Last refinements on our portrait. You see all the colors are blacked in the head or the details, and in the meantime I also already blacked the colors for the clothes. So, go ahead and do that as well. You might be happy with it as it is, but personally in my portrait I don't like the fact that the background is just boring, it's just white. You might just take a complimentary color. So, I would here take something contrasty to the blue of the clothes, maybe go a little bit orangey, reddish, or even pink so that the person in the portrait stands out, and it might be enough of a background just to put a different color in here. But, if you would like to have something more original, you can put in some objects like plants, elements of a landscape. I wanted to include something that was connected with childhood and being a child because I think my brother is here. Oh my God. I'm really bad at estimating three, four, five. So, I went ahead and I checked the Pinterest app for some inspiration, and I typed-in kite plus background, and I found some really nice designs here that are very playful, are very very colorful, and I'm going to choose something. Not completely copy it, just use it as my inspiration and then go ahead and start putting in the shapes that I would like to be in the background first in the colored pencil. Afterwards, I'm going to paint it in. Those very playful elements here, it's enough to put into shapes. So, if I choose the kites I will just paint the color of the kite, the shape of the kite, and I will not put in the details yet in the gouache paint, I will leave it out. We will be using colored pencils, and this is where they're going to be super handy, and I will show you some magic that you can achieve painting the background later on using colored pencils as well. So, go ahead, think about your background, choose a pattern, and then we proceed to painting the background. Okay guys, that's it for the background and I couldn't be really happier. I think it added a little bit more character to the portrait. Yeah, it starts to look even better. You will notice that it's pretty rough, I will still add some details with colored pencils, that's the next section of this tutorial. While we were doing that exercise, you may have noticed further properties of gouache. It's very easy to layer, it was very easy to blend. I still like this spontaneous nature which is very typical of water color that you can still have while painting with gouache, namely that sometimes the color mixed, sometimes I got a completely different color that was really inviting. Actually, I only used white, and I used blue, the same blue that I used for here, this piece of clothing and a little bit of red for some contrast. Then I just played around with the paints. I think it's really good to go minimalist here to choose one, two, or three colors, and then just to have fun mixing it. It will be a little bit more cohesive rather than if you chose any different colors. I think it might be too much, we don't want to draw too much attention away from the face. Right? So, we're off to the final section where we add the final details with the colored pencils. I hope you're having as much fun on the way as I am having.
18. Colored Pencils: The Face: So finally, we come to the part where we start to utilize all the great properties of colored pencils. Namely, the vibrancy of the colors and the texture that you can get when using colored pencils. I want to proceed in the similar way, like with the painting. So, I'll start with adding the details on the person, I'll start with the shadows and then I will add some more details on the skin tone, and the background will come a little bit later. Here, I wanted to present some of the colors that I really recommend to have. For the shadows, maybe quite unexpectedly, I really like using some turquoise. I start for example with this light cobalt turquoise by Faber Castell. Then, I make it a little bit more prominent with some darker turquoise. Later on, the colors that I'm going to choose by the way, it's important to put them aside, even once you're done with the person. Because then, you can reuse it for the background. It's the same rule that we used for the background, that you don't go to any super extra variety of colors, you stick to some colors that repeat, and that will keep the piece more cohesive, and it will feel that it's part of a whole. Also from Faber-Castell, I even have some dedicated colors for skin tones, light skin tone, and middle skin tone. This can be pretty much any pink that you would like to add here. Then, to prevent too much pink, like the little piggy effect, let me show you. I have here also burnt ochre. Then, from other colors, I also recommend purples and perhaps you want some red. Then, if you'd like to add some darker elements, maybe on the eyelashes, I do not recommend really black. Instead, I have indigo. I think it works great. So, let's start with the shadows. I use the reference picture. Then, with very gentle touch, I sometimes outline the shape a little bit. I use it very, very lightly, maybe you can see that. Let me come a little bit closer. Very, very lightly. Then, keep adding some layers. Let's go a little bit darker here on that ear. As you will see here, I recommend taking two colors in the contrasting tone. Perhaps the turquoise or some blue of your choice, and the purple, and then to layer them together. This is also the part where I'm getting a little bit more decisive with the outline. For example, here, the outline of the face. Those spots where I see the shadow is a bit more decisive. I'm using much more pressure. Here's a useful tip: I recommend you do not stick to one color. So, you do not just take blue and then frick, do the outline. Use more colored pencils and create sort of a rainbow effect, like a holograph effect, by adding more than one color. Use at least two, three different colors. After you become a little bit more familiar with how the colored pencils feel on the texture of dry gouache, then you can also go ahead and cover even bigger pieces. So here for example, the shadow that is right underneath, this one. This can also save you a little bit more time. Then taking this part as an example. When I'm done with the piece, for example here, I'm done with the throat, then I'm ditching those more exotic colors, let's say. I'm moving to the safe skin tones. So, pink perhaps and the burnt ochre. For the darkest shadows, I'm using the indigo. Before I do the rest of the face, I wanted just to sum it up for you of the steps that I have done. I started with the shadows. I proceeded with some blue. In this case, turquoise, light, and dark. So, that it's not too bluish. I also added the purples. Again, light and dark. Then, when I was happy with the shadows, I moved in with my skin tone. Any pink of your choice. So, that it's not too pink. I added more of a yellow color. In this case, light ochre, but it could be any yellow that you have. Then, to establish really the darkest shadows, I use the indigo. This color for instance, it's much more neutral, it's just a light skin tone color. If you start to layer it again over the previous layer that we're done with more vibrant colors, bluish and purples, then you will notice that it acts as a binder so to say. It leaves a layer of pigment. It covers it to some extent, and it allows all the colors to blend. Finally, the darkest elements with the indigo color. Starting with the eyelashes. Do you see the difference? This eye and then the other? Yeah, there's a big difference. Finally, the mouth. Guys, I'm actually super happy with how it turned out. I think my brother will be very happy once he gets this portrait. There's a huge difference. I think the gouache painting before colored pencils, it already had a charm in itself, it already looked super nice. I really love the texture of gouache and the colors that you get once they dry. But, when you get onto adding those layers and texture of colored pencils, oh my god, let me show you. It's amazing. Yes. So, we proceed in the next section to finish off the closing and the background. Last steps.
19. Colored Pencils: The Background: One last thing that we need to do is to finish the background. For that, let's use those colored pencils that we used before. I'm having the indigo, the turquoise colors, and that two purples. The one thing that you can do is, for instance, to make the outlines of the clothes a little bit more prominent and here it's also very good to use some contrasting colors. If this is blue, go ahead and take some purple. [ MUSIC ]. You can go wild with this respect that you can create shapes that otherwise would have been pretty difficult to create just using paints and brush. Now, I will move to coloring and adding some details to the kites. [ MUSIC ]. Some final touches on the hair. I've noticed I would like to add some shadows in here and I think we're done. [ MUSIC ].
20. Your Task: So, now you're ready to paint and to proceed to your own project. You have all the tools that you need. You know how to make skin tones. You know how to layer. So, this is your task, to create your portrait now following the steps in this tutorial. Good luck, and I'm looking forward to seeing your progress in the project gallery.
21. Final Thoughts: So, we finally came to the end of the class. I'm really excited to see your project. So, really make sure that you upload them to the project gallery. Let me know if you have any questions or if I can help you with the process under way. I really hope you learned a lot. I hope that you learned to gouache, and that it still will inspire you to paint even more using gouache paint. So, yeah. Thank you very much. I really enjoy teaching this first class. I am sure, I will make many more classes to come. So, to stay tuned for more, make sure that you follow me. You can also find me on Instagram, and actually tag me so that maybe I can feature you on my Instagram profile. I would also really appreciate if you could possibly leave a review for this class. This will allow me, a new teacher, to rank a little bit better and possibly, more people can find this class and benefit from it. Thanks a lot and see you in the next class. Bye, bye.
