Master class on gouache: 12 colors that you can draw all

Do you have such moments when you see a beautiful flower, and you want to transfer it to canvas or paper? Never put such moments into a box, because the feeling that has engulfed you is inspiration. Inspiration, as you know, fleeting and capricious, so, as soon as it came to you, take a pencil, paper and create.

Most recently I saw a photo on the Internet with sunflowers and decided to make a master class of still life using gouache, in which 12 colors. Here I painted such a still-life:

For a sunflower we will need:

• Whatman
• Bristle brush №10( and round №3)
• Pencil
• Gouache colors 12 or 16 colors( I prefer the Neva palette).

Proceed as follows:

Draw a preliminary sketch with a pencil. Here you simply designate the location of the still life objects and their sizes on the sheet. Also for convenience, you should divide the sheet into 4 parts.

After the sketch was applied to the sheet, go to the background shading. Looking at the original, you can see that the left part is darker than the right one. Also we choose what colors are needed for the background. In this still-life, brown, ocher and white will be used as the basis, and green and violet will be used as additional colors. The paint should be applied with stains, large strokes, using a bristle brush, trying to rub and mix colors with other colors, achieving smooth transitions.

Why did I paint over the flowers? Because so the paint would have fallen not tightly and would have lost in the picturesqueness, secondly, it looks more holistic. This is important, because our drawing is not a toy-lego, where the details are attached to each other. And, in the end, the petals do not fill the whole space, there will be an empty space between them, and if you do not paint this background at once, in the future fill the space between the colors will be, at least, difficult.

Let's proceed to applying the paint to the "table".It is necessary to choose hand-sized brushes. I advise you to take a bristle flat No. 3 or No. 8.

Since the top cover of the table is better illuminated, one should take ocher, brown and white. The side of the table is in the shade, so do not use white. If you want to emphasize the depth of the shadow, use black color.

Let's move on to the drapery. As you have already noticed, the drapery is painted in orange, but if you look closely, you can see red, purple and brown, and where the nearest objects are reflected - green and yellow.

For the jar we use ocher, the colors of iron oxide and other colors that you see. Notice that light falls on the left side of the jug, and you need to highlight this part with light colors, you can even add a whitewash. And do not forget about the pen, because it also has glare of light.

Since we painted over the sketch of our colors, it needs to be restored. To do this, we lightly apply a circle to the middle of the flowers. The middle of the flowers is better to do oval, only those flowers that look at you will be round. In green, indicate the place where the stems and petals will be.

In green, we draw leaves, sepals and stems. Also, as we paint over our sketch of colors by the background, we will cover a part of the petals with yellow color. To add a shadow, use blue paint.

And now the most interesting is drawing flowers. Each petal is drawn with one daring stroke, from the center to the edge. Do not try to draw every detail, you can draw it later. Also, we should not forget that not all petals look in our direction.

Let's go to the light on the petals. Determine immediately how the light will fall. The middle of the flowers are convex, they also have light to show it, use the brown paint, adding black to the darkened places or white for glare. The same colors can be used for the shadow on the petals.

We finish the details on the bottom of the picture - apples and a sunflower. Work has come to an end, and with it a master class on drawing gouache.

Video for learning and inspiration: