About gouache landscape

I have been painting landscapes for a while. If it is specifically landscapes, I have a few suggestions:

1. Because most of them should be based on looking at photos or copying, you need to compose the picture. Put some effort into it. Photos are composed using photography and are not necessarily suitable for painting. You can modify them yourself. There is no choice in photography, it must be that way. Painting is much freer and can be selective. This requires looking at more excellent works, asking more teachers, and enhancing your aesthetic ability.

2. A very important aspect of scenery is the sense of air near and far. It depends on whether the painting is sunny or cloudy. If the skylight, that is, the cold light is strong, the farther away the scenery is, the colder it will be, the lighter it will be, and the brighter the color will be. It's the opposite in the sun. Understand that colors are caused by differences in light. You can try it after specifically learning color mixing. Also, you need to practice your brushwork on the sky part to achieve a uniform effect. In the cloud part, attention should be paid to the combination of virtuality and reality.

3. A painting method that can combine thin and thick. Because many places outside now teach using extremely thick colors, I personally feel that this actually limits the gouache painting method. It can be thinner in the dark parts, which is the water painting method. The bright and bright parts of the highlight should also be painted with a thin color while the paper is still white, otherwise it will be difficult to brighten in the end. The scenery in front can be painted thickly, while the distant scenery can be painted thinly to enhance the sense of space.

4. Of course, the most important thing about the scenery is the scenery inside. The scenery in the distance should be flat, that is to say, no matter how far away the bumpy things are, they are flat and the angle becomes very small. Don’t focus on the small twists and turns inside, but look at the big relationships. For example, if the lower side of the cloud is in contact with the horizon, the straight line must be lengthened and no longer zigzag. There are also some smaller key points, such as when painting a reflection in water, the bright parts are slightly darker and the dark parts are slightly brighter, which means the contrast is weakened. The distant view should be virtual, the close view should be realistic, etc.

5. Use color. There are many uses of green color in the landscape. It should be noted that green in nature is gray, so you must not directly apply the green color in paint. Adjust the color to gray and then add color according to the actual situation. The difference and identification of green colors require more practice and understanding~

6. Finally, to summarize, when painting landscape gouache, you should pay more attention to the whole, because the painting is a scene rather than an object. You can paint for a while and stand far away to take a look. Draw the big relationship first, and then shape it. Don’t pursue details from the beginning and eventually fail to form the whole. Know how to understand the direction and power of water flow in mountains, and paint based on understanding. Of course behind all of this there needs to be a solid foundation in brushwork and color grading. Watch more and practice more, and you will definitely make progress.

Waiting for your good news~