A week from today, I'll be releasing my next Gumroad tutorial GRADIENTS. It's the third in the "Color in Practice" series.

In this video workshop, I'll offer a pathway of practical experience for creating color gradations. I show five different ways to produce them, including: watercolor gradient, brushed gradient, stippling with a blender, in-brush gradient and brayer gradient. I'll show how to paint a banded cylinder, a dappled light effect, and a checkerboard illusion.

These exercises bridge from 2D skills to form modeling. In addition I paint four plein-air paintings that put the principles in action: fern study, a traditional landscape, and a cityscape. I use watercolor, gouache, casein, and acrylic, but the painting insights are universal and will benefit oil painters as well.

PRAISE FOR GRADIENTS

“The thing about painting is that everything gradates. Recognizing this, James Gurney devotes an hour to this essential and too often overlooked skill, outlining several approaches to creating seamless transitions in water-based media with some helpful hacks from his illustrator’s bag of tricks. As always, he develops from simple studio exercises into complex field studies, answering questions along the way which give his video the feel of attending a workshop. The video has something for all levels from novice to expert. A brief art history tour though light as a compositional device in landscape paintings is so insightful that I actually whispered “wow, this is amazing” to myself while watching. An absolutely great and informative video on a hugely important subject for all painters.

—Edward Minoff, Artist and Professor, Grand Central Academy

“In this video, artist James Gurney takes the mystery out of painting gradients to add volume: A necessary skill in the painters and illustrators toolbox. Mr. Gurney simplifies the process of painted color gradients by breaking things down into a series of short studio exercises that you can do at home, using a variety of paint mediums and suggested tools. He follows the exercises with on-site demonstrations of the premises, put into practice. I especially enjoyed watching him paint in the rain! James holds nothing back here, even answering student questions in the process. This is a must-see video that I will be sure to recommend to my students at Parsons and Pratt Institute.”

—Veronica Lawlor, Artist and teacher

Running time: 1hr:18mins. HD 1080p streaming or download. Discount of 10% off during the weekend of Sept. 10-12.

Do you find gouache frustrating? I've got some ideas for you

James Gurney's "Gradients" Now Available

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