Tag Archives: gouache

Bumble Bee & Goldenrod

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2.5"X3.5" Gouache on paper

It is amazing how the drawing muscles atrophy when you don't use them. I found this really hard but I felt that I had to contribute something this weekend. I am still battling to finish painting my house and have spent about 20 hours at it over the last three days.

I am very fond of goldenrod, it is native here and consequently considered a weed. Worse than a weed actually because many believe that it is responsible for the seasonal outbreak of hay-fever. This is a myth, the pollen of goldenrod is disseminated by bees. it is the plain green ragweed, flowering at the same time, which is wind pollinated and the guilty party.

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Bushels

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6"X4" Gouache on paper

My muse has deserted me. I haven't been able to do so much as a sketch all week. The fact that I am in a race against time to finish painting my house (as in gallons, 3in brushes and ladders, not tubes, brights and easels) before the weather puts an end to my efforts for another year, drove me to try something different today. I don't use gouache much and I am not good at leaving well enough alone. I try so hard to keep things loose but only the constraint of time forced me to finish this one quickly.

Tomatoes, bushels of them keep on appearing on my back patio. If we all pitch in we can usually process a bushel in under half an hour. This fills a 20 litre pot which then needs to be boiled down for several hours, stirring all the time. When the sauce has reached the right consistency (i.e. it can't be boiled down any further without catching on the bottom of the pot) it is cooled, bagged and frozen. we usually do 15-20 bushels each year and this keeps us in sauce until next tomato season.

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Red Gerbera

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4.5″X6″ Watercolour & guache on paper

I used my English purchases for this. The gouache primaries I bought at the London Graphic Centre, and the handmade watercolour paper I bought at the Tate shop. The gouache set was a real bargain, at least I would have had to pay twice as much here. I suspect that I was ripped off for the paper, all those museum and gallery shops charge an arm and a leg.

I am an easy mark for art supplies, there really isn’t anything any closer than Hamilton where there is a very nice Curry’s. We do have a Michaels, what a depressing place that is, overpriced and little selection, everything comes in a kit. I suppose that anything that helps people to express themselves and work with their hands must be a good thing, but somehow I am not sure that selling them “cookie cutter” craft supplies is the best way of going about it.

Tulips Lilac & Solomon's Seal Peony

Wisley Gardens

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10″X8″ Gouache on coverstock

I was going to do my usual oil-on-Sunday but I had so much fun with the gouach last week that I though I would try using it for a landscape. While I was in England I visited Wisley Gardens with my sister. This is loosely based on some pictures I took while I was there.

It wasn’t entirely successful, I spent about ten minutes more on it than I should have and it started to get overworked. Also I would have been better off using watercolour paper I think, so that I could have achieved better lost edge effects in the sky. Never mind it is all part of the learning curve and the advantage of using the old grey card is that it gives a better midpoint to judge the tones against. I you want to see what can be done with gouache, check out Nathan Fowkes blog he is a genius of the understatement.

Laundry

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9″X8″Gouache on cover-stock

Sitting down on my bed to fold a mountain of laundry the other day I was sidetracked by my new gouache paints. I only have primaries so it is a bit of a challenge getting the colours right but I am loving the fact that I can use white for the highlights. I did this with virtually no preliminary drawing, it was mostly just an exercise in painting fabric, the pillows at the end of the bed and the various things hanging on the back of the closet door provided lots to study.

For the uninitiated, gouache is a water-based medium but is heavier and more opaque than watercolour. It has larger particles and there is also an additional “opacifier”, usually chalk, the ratio of pigment to water is also much higher. In traditional transparent watercolur technique whites and lights are always created by leaving areas unpainted or thinly painted and allowing the white of the paper to show through. Gouache is used more like oils or acrylics and highlights can be added later with white or light coloured paint sometimes called “body colour”.

L’Air du Temps

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8″X8″ Gouache on coverstock

I still have lots of London sketches but I thought I would take a break from posting them today.

I have resigned myself to the fact that I will never be a “real” artist because I am incapable of maintaining even a semblance of a consistent style. Just when I start to get comfortable with a technique or medium my butterfly brain flutters off and alights on something new.

While I was in England I bought a sample box of W & N gouache primaries. I haven’t used gouache for years and they were on sale. I had great fun playing with them this weekend. I used pale grey cover-stock that I bought years ago for some purpose long forgotten. The light on my bedroom wall where the dying sun was shining through the bottle of Nina Ricci, L’Air du Temps was quite irrisistible.