Faces… in Gouache, Watercolour, Inkpen…

I began this painting with a brown watersoluble “Neocolor” crayon, applied with a flourish (and without much of a plan) onto A4 cotton watercolour paper. Then added watercolour and gouache. I used a tiny bit of coloured pencil here and there. The paper texture was a little rougher than I usually like to use for a “face”, however, in general I was pleased with how this turned out.

As always I love to draw “faces”. These days I tend to draw them from memory and imagination. However, the many years of drawing from observation have given me a reasonable amount of confidence to do this.

I’m aware of the distortions that may appear in my “faces” – in part due to not drawing from a model, but if I can get the expression and feel that I want, I think that the “faces”work – for want of a better word! There’s more about my continual love of drawing faces in this post, here.

I’ve recently bought some inexpensive sketchbooks with 150gsm (mostly recycled) paper – they take water quite well. I fill up sketchbooks quickly, so I don’t always like to buy the costly cotton paper ones. It’s also economical to make some of my own, and fun!

In general I work on 100% cotton paper.

Over the past couple of months, I’ve returned to the more familiar (and comfortable) territory of using: inkpen, watercolour, pencil… Also, I’m practicing painting with gouache. The use of white paint continues to be a challenge (as I found upon my revisit to painting with acrylics) but I’m improving! However, as in watercolour painting, I still like to leave some white of the paper for highlights – at least sometimes. 

Though I’ll use acrylics again – my preference is definitely for watercolours; and gouache gives me the option to paint in styles reminiscent of acrylics/oils without the awful clean up and sticky messes. Also watersoluble crayons, pencils, ink pens…are a joy to use. And a little bit of iPad drawing is still on my “go to” list. As I’ve said before, I’m so thankful† for my art opportunities.

I’ll share a post soon of still lifes and landscapes, I’ve drawn and painted these past couple of months.

Thank you for visiting!