Mastering perfect expression skills is an ability to make a work reach a high artistic level. The skills and methods of painting are directly related to artistic expression, appeal and aesthetic value. Therefore, there is no artist who does not attach great importance to the research and exploration of painting techniques. In fact, there are no fixed procedures for various painting techniques; The continuous improvement of painting tools and materials, the renewal of artistic concepts and aesthetic consciousness, and the emergence of various new painting styles will promote the continuous innovation and evolution of techniques. However, in their own professional practice, various paintings have accumulated a lot of technical experience that can be widely used, which is worth learning and learning from.
A thick painting and a thin painting.
In the process of gouache painting, most colors need to be mixed on the palette before entering the picture. The blending of colors and the amount of water and white powder are the problems that reflect the performance techniques and gouache characteristics. Watercolor painting simply uses water to control the thickness of pigment, thus resulting in the change of brightness, and uses the wet and dry color of water to obtain the special performance effect of watercolor painting through color infiltration or reset. Oil painting uses colored oil (turpentine or linseed oil) and white to control the thickness and lightness of color. Gouache painting is between the two. Water can make the pigment thin and translucent, and the brightness of white painting paper can also penetrate the excellent layer. Moisture makes the color thick, and the thickness changes in lightness, which will play the infiltration effect of wet painting like watercolor. This is the thin painting method in gouache painting.
If you use the thick painting method in oil painting to do gouache painting, you have to use less water and use more pigments and white to improve the thickness and brightness of colors. The thin gouache painting method, although using a lot of water, can not achieve the vivid, bright, smooth and moist artistic effect of watercolor painting. Thick painting can't be like oil painting, and a thick color layer can be firmly attached to the painting paper. We often see some gouache paintings, which are so thick that the color layer cracks and falls off and the picture is damaged.
In gouache painting, water has two purposes: one is to dilute the color and facilitate free painting; Secondly, moisture can make the color fade in different degrees, and make the bright paper color penetrate the excellent layer, showing the change of brightness. If you use a lot of water and let the colors flow on the paper, you can also have the effect of blending water and color. Generally, the Bo Tu method with plenty of water is often used in gouache painting for the first time, which can make the color layer soft and delicate and has the effect of receding. This method is often used to draw the shadow part and foreground of the scene. Thin painting can't give full play to the artistic characteristics of gouache because water is multicolored and thin, and the powder factor and hiding power will be weakened, so thin painting is often only suitable for partial or first color painting.
Thick gouache painting is easy to produce the artistic characteristics of gouache painting. Therefore, the amount of pigment in the color mixing box must be kept wet and dry, so as to ensure that enough pigment can be dipped when the brush is inserted into the pigment grid, and it can be very rich and full when colored or painted on paper, and it can be used freely. Sometimes you can dip in several different colors, and draw appropriate colors through brushstrokes while shaping objects, which can draw vivid effects of various colors competing for each other. Of course, without enough experience and basic ability, it will never be easy to do this. Because of many bright objects or scenery, such as sky, water, roads, houses and so on. It is necessary to fill a lot of white to meet the requirements of lightness, so when gouache painting needs to use white, it is necessary to boldly use white and ensure a certain thickness, which can make the modeling thick and powerful, and produce a strong and weak contrast effect with the thin painting part. Generally speaking, in terms of color thickness, thick painting is the main way to obtain better gouache painting effect.
Second, the cohesion of gouache painting
Gouache painting is easy to draw, with clear color blocks and distinct outlines, but it is difficult to draw naturally and softly. In realistic painting and sketch, it is often a difficult problem to express the relationship between reality and reality of objects. In sketching practice, it is common to draw the outline of an object as clearly as clipping. This shortcoming will separate the object from the surrounding environment and weaken the three-dimensional sense and space sense of the object. There are two reasons for this situation: first, the observation method, starting from the local, does not compare the virtual and real relationship of the object contour, which is a cognitive problem; Second, although we know the relationship between reality and reality through observation, we lack the method to express this relationship. The former solution has been described in Chapter 3, Section 5, "Observation and deployment of colors", while the latter solution needs to understand some basic laws of the relationship between water and pink.
The key to the effect of gouache painting by cohesion method is to control the change of color brightness correctly. In the section "Observation and deployment of colors", we have talked about how to use the palette to find the correct relationship between colors in the palette before entering the screen. This is a good way to get the right color cohesion through the palette. Some gouache paintings are done in one go, when the color is not dry, by wet painting. When the colors are not dry, the colors are easier to connect. Cold and warm color blocks can also partially overlap where the two color blocks are connected when the colors are not dry, and a transitional intermediate color is produced after mixing, so that the connection is natural and soft, and there are no stiff marks. The outline of an object's backlight surface is always blurred, which is integrated with the background or projection. It is virtual in the contrast between reality and reality, and weak in the contrast between strength and weakness. This virtual color relationship is most suitable for wet painting to achieve ideal cohesion effect. However, in the process of painting a work, it is difficult to keep the color of the picture wet for a long time, and after the color dries, it loses the effect of wet painting. At this time, you can use a clean brush to coat a layer of water on the parts that need to be connected, so that the dry color condition can be restored to the wet color condition, and then adjust the color of the connection according to this color condition. In this case, the painter will be much more convenient and sure. This method is often used in gouache painting, because the color of gouache painting is obviously different from dry and wet. If you don't use the above method, continue to paint on the dry color layer. The connection between colors mainly depends on experience. What needs to be grasped is that the painted colors are basically the same in personality, and can be naturally connected after drying, and will not be stiff and disjointed. This can also use the first color left in the color mixing box as the basis for connection, or first call out the hue of the color to be connected with it as the standard for continuous connection. These are the methods adopted without experience. With experience, it is not difficult to judge how to allocate connecting colors. Another dry connection method is to connect two different color blocks naturally and softly by using flat cables and color dots, showing a rounded three-dimensional effect. You can use any color line or idea to draw a transitional middle color at the joint, and you can achieve the performance effect. This is the same as in printmaking, where the arrangement of cables is used to express the level of handover.