Portrait on Cardboard

Do you have a frame that has been sitting around for a while that needs to be filled with something? Master artist, Stuart Loughridge, has the perfect solution for you: paint a portrait with gouache on cardboard! He is working from a portrait of a print he had previously done, but you can get source material from anywhere. Make sure that you can put the source material by your working canvas (cardboard) so that you can easily reference it as you paint.

Stuart starts out with a block in with pencil so that he can get the portrait located in the composition where he wants it and then immediately jumps into the gouache so that he can solidify the large shapes more. Remember that gouache dries quickly so you will want to work rapidly with big brushes to cover the cardboard. With the large shapes established a soft charcoal pencil can be used to establish more specific shapes within the features- eyes, nose, and mouth- over which you can layer on more gouache. Up to this point Stuart has only been using brown and white to create a grisaille painting, but once that first layer dries he goes over it with some color glazes.

A large brush with simple color statements does wonders to start to read as flesh on the portrait. Keeping things loose with a simple palette of primary earth colors- red, yellow, black, and white with the addition of dark brown- has resulted in a quick, beautiful, lively portrait to fill an equally beautiful empty frame. Give this method a go to give yourself an afternoon project that has the amazing payoff of exquisite artwork for your wall.