Introductory black canvas painting ideas

Gouache paint (pronounced gw-ash) is similar to both watercolour and acrylic paint mediums. Much like watercolour, it’s a pigment that has to be mixed with water to allow it to spread across paper, canvas or any other surface.

Gouache painting dates back to the 18th century, and at the time was used to create historically relevant and visually arresting works of art. Today gouache paint is often described by artists as an ‘opaque watercolour’, as the medium can be used with watercolour brushes, on watercolour paper, and applies in a very similar way. The only difference is in the sheerness, as when gouache is applied the paper beneath will not be as visible as it is when using traditional watercolours.

Gouache is an underrated yet extremely powerful medium that you should definitely consider working into your style. If you want to learn more about how to use gouache then read on as we’ll be covering how you should use it and why you should use it to your artistic advantage.

What is gouache?

Gouache paint is a mixture of natural or synthetic pigments, water and gum arabic, which essentially acts as a binding agent. In some gouache paints chalk is added to give the paint additional body.

Getting started with gouache

Getting started with gouache is simple: all you need to get started is paints, brushes, a surface, water and a mixing tray or palette.

Gouache paint – There are various gouache paints you can work with, stocked by a wide variety of brands. If you’re experimenting with gouache paint for the first time it’s always best to purchase a few primary colours first, as well as black and white tubes to create various hues and shades. We stock a fantastic selection of discounted Gouache Paints in-store and online. Struggling to decide whether gouache is right for you? Read our Paint Buying Guide.

Brushes – As mentioned previously, there is little difference between watercolour and gouache paints, so if you only have watercolour brushes then you can use these. You can choose from a selection of natural or synthetic fibre brushes in a range of sizes, depending on how you wish to use gouache. When painting with gouache you will want to keep your brush wet so you can work with the paint easily.

Surface – There are a few different surfaces you can work with when it comes to working with gouache. Watercolour paper is always a good option, and whilst you can use canvas, this will always work better with acrylic or oil mediums.

Water – Water is essential when it comes to working with gouache. Very little pigment is required when laying down your colours, so you’ll need a fresh water pot to create the right consistency with your paints.

Mixing palette – Gouache will come in either a tube or tray. It’s always best to have a palette to mix your paints on, in order to create a full spectrum of colours.

An Art Start Literacy Activity

Teacher Notes

Refer to our handy Glossary of Literary Terms for definitions and examples
Read our Art Start The Art of Language Introduction
Look through the Art Start Image Bank
Where not otherwise stated these activities can be undertaken by students in pairs, small groups or individually, depending on the teachers’ individual curriculum requirements.

Group Activity: LOOKING

Instructions for students

What are your first thoughts when you look at this work?
Discuss the images, experiences and music of which you are reminded.

Synonym Challenge

Brainstorm and share a list of key words suggested by the painting. For example: black, white, gaps, square, stripe.
Choose two of these words and see who can find the most synonyms for each. For example: stripe, bar, slit, line, chord.
Record all the words generated by the class.

Symbols – the Meaning of Black and White

What might black and white symbolise? As a class, brainstorm and list ideas. For example: black could symbolise death, night, ignorance, the universe.

Responding to Art Writing Projects

Teacher Notes

Students discuss the messages, meanings and mood of Opening, 1961.
This project requires as background information:

information about Opening in The Art Start Image bank
The Art Start model for investigating art
interpretive ideas and descriptions developed in Language Starter activities.

POETRY

Poetry is like art – it allows us to see something in a different way. Its impact can be powerful and immediate.

A poem is a painting that is not seen;
A painting is a poem that is not heard
Phoebe Hesketh, A poem is a Painting, Page 7, Picture Poems, Benton, M and P, Hodder and Stoughton, 1997

Using this quote as a starting point, discuss and document ways in which art and poetry may be similar.

Acrostic Poetry

Create an acrostic poem using the title of the painting.
Take each consecutive letter of the word ‘opening’ and use it to start a line of poetry that describes the artwork.
For example:
Optical tricks confuse our eyes
Parallel lines in profusion……

Poetry from Multiple Viewpoints

Teacher Notes

Activity inspired by From a picture by Bridget Riley, Nick Dunning, Painting with words, Benton M and P, Hodder and Stoughton, 1995

List people from different walks of life. Now imagine and describe how they would view the painting. For example: to a musician it might resemble funky jazz whereas a prisoner may be reminded of jail bars or a shopper a bar code.
Create a poem using your ideas.

‘To a dancer an illuminated stage
To a doorman
Never ending stairs
To a child a licorice filled candy store
To a mathematician
Perfect symmetry.
To a magician
Another illusion
To a lioness
Her next meal’

This poem is by a Middle Years student

As an alternative, you could experiment with the following format – add an alliterative adjective to describe each person (listed previously) and find synonyms to replace the word ‘sees’. For example:
‘The delicate dancer sees…
The dour doorman stares at …
The cheery child spies …..
The methodical mathematician focuses on perfect symmetry
The mysterious magician perceives……..
The languorous lioness peers at ……….’

Shape Poem Activity

Brainstorm a list of shapes found in Opening, 1961, such as square, diamond, thin rectangles.
Use the words generated in the Language Starters Synonym Challenge, to fill in the shapes suggested to create a shape poem.

Presenting and Performing Projects

Poetry Reading Activity

The earliest poems were not written down, due to low levels of literacy. Instead, they were performed aloud. Volume, speed of reading, body language (including sometimes dramatic gestures), and pauses were all used in performances to keep the audience enthralled. Consider these aspects of performance before engaging in the activity below.

In small groups or as a class create and or film a performance of the poetry generated by the Responding to Art Writing Projects Poetry from Multiple Viewpoints Activity. Consider performing the poems with several speakers, wearing costume or accompanying the readings with illustrations of the poems.

Matching Art and Nature Activity

Bridget Riley has suggested that her works reflect the rhythms and energy of nature.
Discuss and list the ways Opening, 1961 reminds you of energy in nature.
Research the work of the artist.
Working in small groups, choose five of her paintings and create artworks, take photographs or collect images that depict an image of nature that you believe matches each artwork.
Create a PowerPoint presentation for your class with a commentary that explains the connection between your images and her paintings.

Blackness

Almost all of the figures in Yiadom-Boakye’s paintings are black. Writer and critic Hilton Als has written that Yiadom-Boakye is ‘interested in black society, not as it was affected or shaped by the white world, but as it exist[s] unto itself’. As the artist describes;

Blackness has never been other to me. Therefore, I’ve never felt the need to explain its presence in the work anymore than I’ve felt the need to explain my presence in the world, however often I’m asked. I’ve never liked being told who I am, how I should speak, what to think and how to think it. I’ve never needed telling. I get that from my family. Across generations, we’ve always known who we are. To be measured relative to something that actually has nothing to do with you or your experience, some self-appointed superior, the ghost of who you ought to be . none of this has ever made any sense and yet somehow you live with it, live in it. But the idea of infinity, of a life and a world of infinite possibilities, where anything is possible for you, unconstrained by the nightmare fantasies of others, to have the presence of mind to walk as wildly as you will, that’s what I think about most, that is the direction I’ve always wanted to move in. Following my own nose and doing as I damned well please has always seemed to me to be the most radical thing I could do. It isn’t so much about placing black people in the canon as it is about saying that we’ve always been here, we’ve always existed, self-sufficient, outside of nightmares and imaginations, pre and post “discovery”, and in no way defined or limited by who sees us.

Writing

I write about the things I can’t paint and paint the things I can’t write about.
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye

Writing is central to Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s practice. She is both a painter and a writer of prose and poetry. For her, the two forms of creativity are separate but intertwined.

Similarly, she gives her paintings poetic titles. She describes these as ‘an extra brush-mark’. They are integral to each work but are not an explanation or description. They are springboards for our imagination.

Music

Music plays an important part in the artist’s practice and she has described how the music she listens to has impacted her paintings.

I always think of my painting influences as really going hand in hand with musical influences. That has to do with what I listened to in my formative years – that’s why Prince always comes up. But then, when I started to listen to jazz, it marked my thinking about rhythm. Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Bill Evans. Passages in sound that move unexpectedly. Or the tones in the voice of Nick Drake. At a very particular point during art school I listened to him every day.
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye

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Introductory black canvas painting ideas