sunlit-gouache

What this skill does

# /sunlit-gouache — Sunlit Gouache travel-painting illustration

This skill produces a single editorial illustration in a bright, painterly **gouache travel-painting** style. Every piece is a small captured moment of unhurried daily life — figures seen from behind walking toward warm sunlight, painted with chunky flat brushstrokes on textured paper. The recipe is locked; only the scene, light register, cast, overhead motif, and cultural register vary.

## Prompt interpretation

The user typically supplies a **short scene seed** — usually a setting ("a sunlit café terrace", "a ferry pier at dawn", "a noodle shop in winter"). It is your job to **brainstorm and expand it** into a vivid, specific moment. Do not stop to confirm. Imagine the moment, then run.

For each invocation:

1. **Take the seed.** Note the setting, time of day if given, any specific figure/prop the user named.
2. **Imagine the moment.** Who is there, what are they doing, what hangs above them, what does the ground reflect, what's the *one* red accent?
3. **Set the five dials** (scene archetype, light register, cast, overhead motif, cultural register) — see "Variable axes" below.
4. **Keep every other axis locked.** The medium, palette, composition, viewing angle, mood — never vary.

Bias toward concrete, lived-in details: a half-pulled rolling suitcase, a paper bag of flowers, a discarded boarding pass, a cat curled in a light patch, a child reaching for a hand. The scene should feel painted from life, not assembled.

## Locked style axes (NEVER vary)

### Medium
- **Opaque gouache on textured paper.** Visible chunky flat brushstrokes with dry-brush highlights and small streaks of bare paper showing through.
- **Every shape is a brushstroke.** Buildings, trains, awnings, figures, reflections — all rendered as decisive flat strokes, not outlined and filled.
- **NOT** watercolor wash (no transparent bleeds). **NOT** digital vector. **NOT** photorealistic. **NOT** clean cartoon.
- The brush handling reads as semi-impressionistic — Henri Manguin or Pierre Bonnard cousin energy, not Andrew Wyeth realism or Studio Ghibli polish.

### Palette (strict — six colors only)
- **Cream / warm off-white** — the lightest highlights, sunlit floor patches, sky behind the focal light
- **Butter-yellow** — direct sunlight, awning, signs, one figure's clothing
- **Sky-blue** — shadows on white surfaces, one figure's clothing, glass, distant air
- **Sage-green** — one figure's clothing, plants, painted woodwork, shadow accents
- **Terracotta-orange** — warm prop accents, painted metalwork, reflections
- **One small red accent** — exactly ONE saturated red object somewhere in the frame (a suitcase, a lantern, a geranium, a book spine, a scarf, a cap, a cat's collar). Never two reds. The red is the eye-anchor.

Avoid: pure black, pure neutral gray, brown, magenta, neon. Shadows are blue-green-violet mixes, never black.

### Composition
- **Vertical 2:3 aspect** (e.g. 1024 × 1536).
- **One-point perspective** drawing the eye into a bright focal point at the far end — a sunlit pavilion, an arriving train, an open window, the end of the arcade. The focal point is always the brightest part of the frame.
- **Figures grounded in the lower half**, seen from **behind or three-quarter**, walking *into* the scene. Never facing camera directly. The viewer is always the trailing observer.
- **Overhead band of hanging elements** running across the top third — awning, prayer flags, catenary wires, bunting, lanterns, glass roof, hanging signs. This band creates the depth ceiling and frames the focal light.
- **Dappled reflective ground** in the foreground — wet cobblestones, polished stone, wooden floorboards, tiled platform — reflecting loose painterly patches of yellow, blue, sage in the same chunky brush handling. The reflections are abstract suggestions, not literal mirror images.

### Light
- **Warm directional sunlight** flooding the focal point. The light is the subject.
- Long soft shadows in the foreground; midground is half-lit; far focal point is glowing-bright.
- **Dappled patches of color** across the ground — yellow, blue, sage, terracotta — never an even gray shadow.

### Figures
- Painted as **loose flat strokes**, not detailed portraits. Faces are suggested with a few small marks (a cheek, an ear, hair) — never rendered.
- **Always seen from behind, three-quarter behind, or in profile.** Never facing camera.
- Body language reads as unhurried — walking, browsing, waiting, sipping. No dramatic action.
- Clothing pulled from the locked palette (yellow / blue / sage / terracotta / cream). Distribute so each main color appears on at least one figure.

### Mood
- Airy, optimistic, warm. The quiet joy of an unhurried travel moment.
- Late morning to golden hour. Never night, never overcast, never high drama.

## Variable axes (the dials you set per scene)

### 1. Scene archetype — *where this moment lives*
Strong picks: café terrace · tram stop · market arcade · bookshop interior · ferry pier · temple courtyard · train platform · airport gate · library aisle · greenhouse · noodle shop · hotel lobby · vineyard path · beach boardwalk · rooftop garden · museum hall · public bath house · funicular station · subway escalator hall · church side-aisle · stationer's shop · flower market

Each archetype should pick **one defining structural element** (the awning, the carved eaves, the tall bookcases, the catenary, the iron-and-glass roof) and let it own the overhead band.

### 2. Light register — *time + angle*
- **Golden hour** — warm low sun, long shadows, terracotta and butter-yellow dominant
- **Noon overhead** — bright even cream light, minimal shadow, sky-blue and sage dominant
- **Soft morning** — cool cream light, gentle, sage and butter-yellow dominant
- **Late afternoon** — long warm shadows, butter-yellow and terracotta dominant

### 3. Cast — *who is in the frame*
- Solo wanderer (single figure walking ahead)
- Couple (two figures, often holding hands or carrying something between them)
- Small group (3–5 travelers, mixed ages)
- Family with child (the child is often the locus of motion)
- Worker + visitors (a waiter, a monk, a vendor, a librarian, a stationmaster — one figure in a working role + others passing through)

Distribute the locked palette across the cast — at least one figure in butter-yellow, one in sky-blue, one in sage-green, with terracotta in props or accents.

### 4. Overhead motif — *what hangs above*
The depth ceiling element that runs across the top third:
- Striped awning (café, market)
- Catenary wires + station signs (tram, train, subway)
- Prayer flags + paper lanterns (temple, festival)
- Bunting + bulb-string lights (market, terrace)
- Iron-and-glass roof (station, arcade, greenhouse)
- Tree canopy / climbing vines (vineyard, courtyard)
- Hanging chalkboards + paper menus (café, noodle shop)
- Long carved eaves (temple, traditional architecture)

Pick the one that belongs to the archetype — don't bolt prayer flags onto a Parisian café.

### 5. Cultural register — *geographic flavor*
- European street (default — Parisian, Italian, Iberian)
- Asian temple / market / noodle shop / bath house
- Mediterranean coast (white-and-blue, terracotta tile)
- Tropical (palm shadows, open-air markets)
- North American small-town (wooden boardwalk, diner)
- Generic travel (deliberately ambiguous)

The cultural register tunes the architecture and the overhead motif — not the palette. The palette stays locked.

## Reference images (the locked set)

Five canonical pieces anchor this style. Use them as visual references when prompting an image model — pass at least one as an image input where the model supports image-to-image, or describe their handling in the prompt.

| File | Scene | What it anchors |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `ref-market-arcade.jpg` | Sunday morning market under a glass-and-iron arcade | The canonical exemplar. Strongest chunky brushwork, full palette, family-with-child cast, buntin