Color Values: Learn to Paint Tints & Shades in Gouache

Tutorials

Jan 13

Color Values: Learn to Paint Tints & Shades in Gouache I by Larissa Yeung Fung

Color Values: Learn to Paint Tints & Shades in Gouache II by Larissa Yeung Fung

This exercise is all about exploring color values by practicing painting tints and shades. As I explained in my Paint Color Wheel in Gouache class, a tint is a pure color (also known as hue) mixed with white, while a shade is a pure color mixed with black. So the key to this exercise is to practice creating tints and shades using gouache paints. And then we use these colors and their tints and shades to paint an abstract work.

Color Values: Learn to Paint Tints & Shades in Gouache tutorial | the challenge

The Supplies I Use

I used the following supplies for this exercise:

Winsor & Newton Designer Gouache
Winsor & Newton Cotman Round Brush
Winsor & Newton Watercolor Paper, Cold Pressed, A4
Round Porcelain Paint Palette (7 well & 12 well)

Picking or Mixing Colors

I suggest you do this exercise by using only three colors. You can use colors straight from the tube, or mix your own colors. I mixed my three colors in the image below.

Color Values: Learn to Paint Tints & Shades in Gouache tutorial | preparation

Preparing Paints

After mixing my three colors, I created tints and shades out of these colors by adding white and black to them. You can see I created two tints and two shades for each color. You can create as many tints and shades as you want. Make sure you differentiate the tints and the shades by adding different amounts of white or black to the colors.

Sketching Shapes

Since the theme is abstract, I decided to draw a bunch of lines across the paper to create lots of shapes. You can create shapes in any way you like.

Painting Shapes

The painting process comes so easily when all the paints are ready to use. Paint a shape with a color at a time. Consider what colors go well with each other as you go.

Using Leftover Paints

If you have paints left from doing this exercise, I encourage you to paint a different work using the same paints. The paints I use are pretty expensive and I don’t want to waste them. So I use them to paint a new work. In this work I painted lots of small shapes, and I painted them either from the lightest color to the darkest color, or vice versa. It’s just a way I think of to play with color values.

Enjoy the tutorial and hope you will have fun painting lots of tints and shades.

Happy creating!

GouachePainting

Larissa's Art Studio https://www.larissasartstudio.com