Wet-in-Wet Gouache: Two Gradient Studies

Short post for two quick technical studies.

The plain one

I painted the simplistic landscape piece to practise a new gouache technique for gradations. The technique uses wet-in-wet with some brush smoothing until the gradient meets the desired effect. This was used for both the sky and the grass. With the grass, though, the wet-in-wet was pushed further by adding varied strokes of the darker-value hues to create a sense of texture. After allowing it to dry, wet-on-dry layering was used to layer in the mountains and some lighter areas for the distant grass.

Layering was something I found challenging when I started using gouache, as the pigment would tend to lift quite a bit. Having worked with it now over a number of pieces I can somewhat tell when the paint consistency is enough to layer effectively, preserving the underlayers and hue. There are also new things I'm trying which reactivate dry layers to soften edges, but I need more practice with this. Potentially a future post on edges.

The rock

The second piece I did using wet-in-wet again, but this time I wanted to practise it on a subject. It gave these really cool feathered edges where the pigment was carried out by the water, and it was a nice way to layer in a more watercolour-style gradient to the underpainting. Although I'm happy with the result, I'd say I went overboard with the dry layered paint on top of the underlying wash, almost to the point where it became completely covered, which unfortunately removed a lot of the effect the method was trying to capture in the first place.

Anyway, I think this is something I need to push further and gain more confidence with, so I can fully combine the techniques to create cohesion in the piece. The purpose of trying these techniques is to further push my toolbox, to help me solve problems in other paintings I do in the future. Different techniques have different strengths and weaknesses. One thing I'm not clear on yet is how a wet-in-wet technique could be used over other pigment layers. I'll need to explore some sketchbook swatches to figure out the capabilities of this method, given the guarantee that it will introduce pigment lift.