Peter's Sketchbook

[Peter]

Hey Peter. Glad to see you're giving gouache another shot. Colour can be pretty intimidating, especially if you're new to it or haven't touched it in a while. Don't be too afraid of just jumping in. You'll learn an awful lot about colour mixing just by doing it, and over time it will become a bit more intuitive. I think I've written a bunch of random things here before, but at the risk of repeating myself, here are a few things that may help.

To make things read, you need to get your values and their relationships right.
Gouache dries lighter than when wet, and you can only get so dark. (I've actually put black back on my pallet because I can't get as dark as I need otherwise)
Your eyes will lie to you. If you're having difficulty with a colour, try isolate it. I look through my fingers, but you may like a paper cut out or just to squint.
If you thin your gouache down with lots of water, it will dry even lighter.
You'll have difficulty getting very saturated very high value colours. Aim for the right value rather than saturation.
You can go over dry paint repeatedly. Just remember to touch it once, otherwise the paint beneath will reactivate and become muddy.
You can prime your paper with gesso to increase the drying time. Your paper will buckle less as well.
Try masking your edges with low tack painters tape. It adds a lovely finish.
If the light moves too much, come back anther day, or take a photo and some notes.
Take all of the above with several grains of salt.
Really glad to see you're putting in so much time. Good luck and enjoy yourself.

Hey Matthew how's it going? Yes I remember actually, you left me some feedback a few months back. Thanks again btw, you know a hell of alot more than me when it comes to painting so I welcome all the feedback. :)

I'll refer back to your notes next time I'm painting, my aim now is to paint for atleast a couple of hours a week just so I don't get rusty. :)