Friday, January 29, 2010

Drawing + gouache




Here's what I added to that drawing from the other day. The diagrams are all from that railroad book (although out of scale and simplified) and the color is all gouache. I like using it in a semi-transparent way that's somewhere between normal watercolor and gouache to give flat areas of color that don't totally hide the pencil lines. I can tell I'm going to keep playing with the opacity of the paint in these drawings to change how much it shows and hides of the underlying drawing.

4 comments:

belinda marshall said...

i like, it's great! i think you've succeeded beautifully with the addition of the figure.

interesting about keeping the pencil lines ~ i love to be able to see them too, and so often they get lost with the paint layer. that said, if none get covered i feel like i'm cheating/just colouring in!

Janelle said...

Thanks! I'm still working out some things, but I like it too.

I skirt the "coloring in" issue by leaving bits of white and going outside the lines in what I hope is an interesting way :) But now that I have some opacity to play with I think that will add some interest, too.

freshlychopped said...

i love it! very interesting composition adding the diagrams from the book... and definitely something original that i haven't seen before. also lovely seeing you use gouache. i've been planning on picking some up for myself - i love the matte coloring, so it will be good for me to see how you work it. : )

Janelle said...

Thank you Leah! I think I played with gouache for about 2 months off and on before I decided it would work well here. I'm not used to things that change as they dry but it gets easier the more I do it.