Above: Canary study in gouache. No undersketch at all. For this bird I worked directly with layers of Schmincke gouache over a pre-painted (acrylics) background. The sketch is in my current journal: an 8 inch (approx.) square journal I made with TH Saunders Waterford 90 lb. HP watercolor paper. Click on the image to view an enlargement.
While I doubt anyone will bring a bird to Paws on Grand, I of course have to draw and paint birds from time to time. I think we can also include him in the Faces project! On this evening I had yet to paint anything and decided to pull up some photos I'd taken of birds on recent sketching trips to the pet store.
I loved the orange background but I had to lose it because there were edges I needed to fix in my "drawing." At least with gouache you can do that!
Left: Since this is a project about faces here's a detail of the canary's face. A lovely little bird. When I met him at the store I sketched him for quite awhile before snapping his photo and departing for home. (I used the sketches as well as the photos to make this painted sketch back in the studio.) He was very curious. The orange you see around his beak, eyebrow, and top of his head is all the background color showing through. One of the nice things about having a pre-painted background is that you can leave a thin space between your areas of color and you won't see "white" and your paint won't run together. Click on the image to view an enlargement.
Someone asked me about brushes the other day and I have several posts on my favorite brushes, but I haven't had the time (or hand strength) to update those. I just wanted to give you a heads up that I recently purchased a set of brushes from Princeton labeled "Snap." There were 5 to the package, including a 3/4 inch angled shader and a filbert and a round. At least I think there were 5 brushes, they got mixed in with other things. The point is, for under $15 I got a great deal on some synthetic brushes that are really quite springy and fun to use. So look for them wherever you find Princeton brushes, especially if you are new to gouache and worried about being too hard on your watercolor brushes.
(Note: I'm not affiliated with Princeton at all. I just thought I'd let you know their are good deals on useful brushes out there! Update: There were 3 brushes to most packages I saw on a trip to the store earlier this week [and I forgot to update this post that was scheduled to print]. That's still a good deal. They are useful brushes I'm quite enjoying.)
