Sunday Master Study in Gouache: Norman Rockwell

This past Sunday I decided to level up my practice and do a head master study in gouache.

I love artists like Rockwell, Leyendecker, Cornwell... and other midcentury American illustrators. And luckily, their artwork is perfect for an exercise like that.

I got a massive book of Rockwell's 332 magazine covers, so I picked one that I thought would be fun to do. Not too difficult for my skill level, but still challenging enough to learn from it.

I went with the one titled "Merrie Christmas".

Color palette is minimal. Just Titanium White, Ivory Black, and Flame Red. (All Windsor and Newton designer's gouache.)

The most difficult part was the mixing of the colors. To get those mid-tone ranges that looked almost orangey. For the life of me, I couldn't get them with just my three-color palette...

Perhaps Norman used an additional yellow for this painting. Or my color mixing is totally rubbish. (Which it is.)

Anyway.

Here's the final result:

And here are the various progress stages:

And just for reference... here's my master study next to the original: