Sketchbook Studies – Green Gouache: Preclass

Welcome to the preclass lesson! I hope you’re excited to learn how to paint gorgeous nature scenes in gouache. In the video below, learn about the supplies needed, and we’ll shortly be ready to start putting paint in our sketchbooks!

Before we start…a little housekeeping

I retain the copyright to the content you are learning in class. That means…

1. Do not sell or give away the concepts from my classes – you may not re-teach my instruction contained or created within these lessons.
2. Do not post a video tutorial or step by step photo tutorial of your own redraw of class content.
3. Do not repost any handouts you receive in class.

However…I love to see students making strides and taking this teaching and personalizing it with your own skills.

1. DO make your own designs and develop your own style! I love that!
2. DO gift your creations made with these techniques, of course!

At the bottom of each lesson you’ll see some ways to share your homework and ask questions, so that’ll be handy for you.

Video: Supplies

A discussion of supplies needed for this course.

Supplies list:

As with all my classes, use supplies you love, being prepared for different results. (Which is not a bad thing!)

Gouache

I recommend as always to get the best quality you can afford; poor supplies don’t prepare  you for what you’ll need to know for that day when you step up to artist quality materials.

This course will be quite difficult with brands like Himi that mix a lot of white into their colors already; artist grade paints allow the artist to mix colors the way they want.

1. Daniel Smith gouache, in my experience, stays creamy longer than other brands, and has great consistency from one tube to another. In this course I used mostly colors from their initial release; the second release gave us more greens, which have been added to the mix for this course.
   1. Hansa Yellow Light or another cool, light yellow like Lemon or Cad Yellow Light
   2. Hansa Yellow Deep
   3. Burnt Sienna
   4. Ultramarine
   5. Permanent Green Light or Spring Green (don’t need both, I use Spring more often)
   6. Cascade Green
   7. Titanium White
   8. Ivory Black or Lamp Black (any black, actually!)
   9. NEW greens (optional but after seeing some colors you may decide you like some)
      1. Sap Green (if you want one new green add this one; in masstone it’s nearly black!)
      2. Olive Green
      3. Phthalo Green (Blue Shade)
2. Winsor & Newton makes a reasonably priced 10-color intro set, and I fully endorse the color collection! These do dry in a palette faster than DS, but you can reconstitute them with a few drops of water and a toothpick to stir them. You can mix a ton of greens out of this set.
   Buy at Blick  |  Buy at Amazon

Sketchbook

You can use any sketchbook that works for you, but this class is demonstrated in a Pentallic 5″ x 8″: Blick • Amazon

Brushes

You can easily get away with your cheap brushes! Sizes to consider are in this Jack Richeson travel brush set that includes flat 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, round 2 4 6 8 . If you’d like the JR set, it’s here: Blick • Amazon

There’s a set of Plaid brushes that I picked up at a drugstore for my masking fluid and tried them with gouache – they won’t last long but seem to be good for tiny details. I couldn’t find the all-tiny-round ones online but did find a little mixed set on Amazon.

Miscellaneous

1. Joybest airtight palette if you’d like something to put your paints into, but know that squeezing out a little for your painting is becoming my favorite way to work now!
2. A white palette or dish of some kind for mixing; I use cheap white ceramic tiles from the hardware store
3. Artist tape  1/2″
4. Dorlands Wax Medium 4oz (Blick • Amazon) or  16oz ( Blick  • Amazon ) to make your paintings waterproof

Video 2: Palette Setup

These videos are a series of vides made for the Gouache Jumpstart course that might be of interest!

Video 3: Pigment Consistency

A refresher if you’ve been away from gouache a little bit…

Video 4: Swatching Tints & Shade

Another refresher exercise.

Video 5: Protecting your gouache painting