(Braucht Übersetzung) In the last weeks months, I wanted to spend more time on a painting (gouache). This project started in September 2016, and is a kind of tribute to Alphonse Mucha.

Here is the final result afer 8 months of work (from 0 to 30 minutes per day):
The result isn't worth the huge amount of work, but I've learned a lot. You can find here various observations I've made. All my studies in painting being self-taught, these observations must be taken with a grain of salt:

It is formative to work in front of a color wheel, by knowing that every color can be recreated by mixing two saturated colors (whatever the target saturation is*), and black or white to adapt the luminosity.

* It is not true in certain cases: for example by mixing yellow and green, we can't get a pure yellow-green, but a lightly unsaturated one. Buying more colors can be comfortable, in particular if it is a main color of our painting. Here, I limited myself to the ten colors contained in my box (Neocolors II). For every unsaturated color, on the other hand, ten colors are enough because the human brain cannot distinguish any hue difference between them (whether a grey is more greenish or yellowish doesn't matter).

Arround this circle are the saturated colors, in the center is the grey.
We can unsaturate a color by mixing it with its compementary one (its oposit color in the color wheel : yellow/violet, red/green, orange/blue). In the same proportions, we get a colored gray (because getting a perfect grey is very unlikely).
Being able to qualify any color by its hue/saturation/luminosity and recreate it, opens the door to nearly endless possibilities.
The spontaneity of the brush strokes are primordial. A painter must behave like a warrior, because the fear will be visible.
Water and pigment proportions have a strong impact on the rendering.
With a correct dosage, it is possible to apply very thin but opaque layers.
The Neocolors should never be sharpened and their lifetime is remarkable.
Gouache has a quick drying time, in comparision with other techniques, but still requires a few minutes.
The way brush strokes will mix with the painting is a play between quicker or slower executions, as well as longer or shorter waiting times.