In order to get back to the habit of painting, none- digital style, over the last few weeks, I’ve dedicated one of my weekend days just to paint.
After experimenting with watercolor, oil painting, and acrylic paints, I finally found the media that make me feel most comfortable: Gouache paint. It can deliver both the transclusion texture almost as well as the watercolor. If you use less water, you can paint over the dried part easily just like acrylic. The gouache paint dries in a nice short period of time, not like oil painting, you have to wait for days for it to dry. On the other hand, acrylic dries way too quickly, I have to paint really fast and sometimes I find it is very easy to waste paints.
I remember back in China during the school days, the material we used to paint was also translated as Gouache / 水粉, but not till recently I realized they’re actually Poster Paint / 广告颜料. It is very similar to Gouache, but a lot affordable in price. It’s a shame that the Poster paint can’t be found easily in the U.K., because they could be a great replacement to gouache for me. For example, Studio Ghibli’s most background arts were all done in Poster paint, so the quality is really not that bad.
So by setting myself a screen-free time every week, I find my focus span has also increased. Listen to music and paint just feel so relaxing and therapeutic, especially on a rainy day. It brings me back to my evening art school days. With the smell of paints, distance traffic noise, I and my friends and the teacher shared snacks and occasionally chat. I feel like I could just sit and paint forever.
My last week’s painting is from one of my favourite game Firewatch, the game itself is truly visual poetry, every frame so beautiful that makes you want to live inside the game world. So I pick it as my drawing topic.
Hopefully, more to come!