Tag: Gouache

Categories
Drawing Flower Art Gardening Gouache Outdoors/Landscape Painting Photos Plants Sketchbook Pages

Botanical Sketches: Proteus

Proteus in Bloom, ink & gouache, Moleskine 5x7 sketchbook
Proteus in Bloom, ink & gouache, Moleskine 5x7 sketchbook

When I was walking to BART last week I ran into Fletch who had just finished shooting photos of an amazing Proteus  a few blocks from my house. I must have walked by this stunning plant a hundred times and never noticed it until he pointed it out to me. I couldn’t stop to sketch that morning but finally got back there this afternoon.

I got as close as I could without trespassing and sketched with my Micron Pigma .01 pen, trying to capture the many different forms the blossoms take along the way to fully blooming. Then I used my mini gouache palette and a tiny brush to paint the details.  Gouache seemed like a perfect medium for doing this kind of detailed botanical sketching.

I also took a bunch of photos of these amazing and diverse flowers. Here are a couple of them:

Photo of Proteus blossom
Photo of Proteus blossom
Proteus in bloom, photo
Proteus in bloom, photo

Note to self: Find proteus at a nursery and plant them! But first I want to do some larger botanical illustrations from my photos (or from life if I can convince the woman who owns the plant to allow me to take some cuttings). Fletch told me she reluctantly allowed him to take one.

And here’s a bit of etymological (word origin) trivia about theProteus:

The Proteus got its name because of its amazing diversity of form: It was named after the Greek sea god, Proteus, who was able to change his appearance at will.  From this comes the adjective “protean,” which means “versatile”, “mutable”, “capable of assuming many forms.” “Protean” has positive connotations of flexibility, versatility and adaptability.

Categories
Gouache Ink and watercolor wash People Sketchbook Pages Subway drawings

Subway Sketches: Pigeons, People, Shoes

Shoes on subway, ink & watercolor in sketchbook
Shoes on subway, ink & watercolor in sketchbook

I’m really enjoying sketching anywhere and everywhere lately. Here are a few sketches with watercolor added later from BART stations and trains this week.

In His Own World, ink & gouache in sketchbook
In His Own World, ink & gouache in sketchbook

These pigeons were doing the Romeo and Juliet thing in the BART station. BART put up mean wire pigeon preventers everywhere that makes it hard for them to perch anywhere. But these two found a dark corner to bill and coo. I know next to nothing about birds, but Romeo was puffing up his (?) neck as he made his croohoo noise and canoodled with Juliet who kept sticking her feathered hiney up in the air.

BART Station Pigeons, ink & gouache in sketchbook
BART Station Pigeons, ink & gouache in sketchbook

I added the gouache on the last two at home, not on BART, since I usually only have a few minutes for each sketch.

Categories
Drawing Dreams Gouache Life in general Painting Sketchbook Pages

Cereal Dream; Clogged Sink Nightmare

Plink Cereal Dream, ink & gouache, in Moleskine 5x7"
Plink Cereal Dream, ink & gouache, in Moleskine 5x7"

I had a dream last night about a new cereal called “PLINK” that was designed to be eaten at your desk. I think the name of the cereal comes from the sound the computer makes when a new email message arrives.

This morning  when I prepared to do the dishes waiting for me in the sink (OK, not just my breakfast dishes but about three days worth) I discovered it was completely clogged and wouldn’t drain. I poured a teakettle full of boiling water down the drain, thinking that might help, but all it did was fill the sink even more. I left the dishes piled in the mucky water and went to work.

Clogged Drain Nightmare, ink & gouache in Moleskine, 5x7"
Clogged Drain Nightmare, ink & gouache in Moleskine, 5x7"

When I came home I asked my neighbor who knows everything about working on houses, what I should do. He came over with a plunger and spent 15 minutes trying that approach. But instead of emptying the sink, the plunger added what looked and smelled like rusty mud to the water. In a way it was an improvement over the left-over cauliflower scent from last night’s dinner.

After spattering muddy water everywhere he gave up and promised to bring over a drain snake tomorrow night. I tried to look on the bright side: since I couldn’t wash dishes or vegetables, I had a perfect excuse to neither cook nor do dishes.

I had a bowl of cereal for dinner. Not PLINK though,  just Cheerios.

Categories
Acrylic Painting Flower Art Glass Gouache Ink and watercolor wash Painting Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

Painting Camellias with Mariah

Camelia #3, Watercolor on paper, 4x6"
Camellia #3, Watercolor on paper, 4x6"

Last night my step-granddaughter Mariah, a brilliant, almost 10 year-old artist with an enviable  sense of design and assurance and confidence in her work came over for a visit while her parents went out to dinner. Even though she she was sick, she was still up for doing some drawing and painting.

We picked a few camellias from my tree and got to work (or was it play?) drawing. She wanted to use acrylics; I fooled around with gouache and watercolor. Here’s her painting:

Mariah's Camelias, acrylic on paper, 8x8"
Mariah's Camellias, Acrylic & graphite on paper, 8x8"

And here are the two I did last night. (The one at the top top of this post I did this morning, with the flowers beside the window. I wasn’t ready to stop painting these pretty flowers, the first of the flowers to bloom in my garden.)

Camelia #2, watercolor on paper, 6x4"
Camellia #2, Watercolor & ink on paper, 6x4"
Camelia #1, Gouache on paper, 6x4"
Camellia #1, Gouache and graphite on paper, 4x6"

I really don’t like the way using white with gouache looks so chaulky.  I much prefer the clear lights in watercolor that you get by leaving areas white or only lightly glazed with color.

Categories
Flower Art Glass Gouache Painting Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

My Prickly (Artichoke) Heart

Artichoke Heart, Ink & watercolor on hotpress Arches paper
Artichoke Heart, Ink & watercolor on hotpress Arches paper

I think the soft, flowery heart inside a prickly artichoke perfectly illustrates my feelings about Valentines Day. I love artichokes and the heart is always the best part, but you have to work to win the right to savor it. I was surprised how soft, gentle and flexible the leaves were when I peeled them off to get to the heart, compared to how tough they are when they’ve been boiled. I’m sure there’s a good analogy there about love and tenderness, but I’ll leave that to the poets.

I first tried to do this painting using a sketchbook I hadn’t tried before: Maruman Art Spiral, that has what looks like cold press  watercolor paper in it. It started dissolving when I tried to lift paint or glaze more than one layer. Yuck. I wasn’t at all happy with the first try below and started over.

Artichoke heart on crummy paper
First attempt on crummy paper

As I wrote in my last post, the past few weeks have been rough. When I finally got in the studio today. I began by wasting an hour trying to rescue a painting of 3 artichokes I’d started last night and finally decided it was unsalvageable. I felt uninspired, clumsy and like everything I tried to do is crap.

Then my cat jumped on the drawing table to sunbathe under my lamp. I had a brush in my hand, my gouache palette open, a sketchbook I wanted to finish and a willing model. So I did quick kittie sketches with paint, trying to get back in the flow. It helped get the juices flowing again, although my inner critic was still harping at me, telling me these were crap too.

20090214-cat620090214-cat520090214-cat4

20090214-cat320090214-cat2

Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t, but they’re bright and colorful and were fun to do, and the stupid sketchbook is filled and on the shelf.

Categories
Drawing Gouache Painting Sketchbook Pages Still Life

Hog Island Oyster Shells: Using Gouache Like Watercolor

Oyster Shells painted in Gouache in large watercolor Moleskine
Oyster Shells, Ink and Gouache in large watercolor Moleskine (SOLD)

When I had lunch at Hog Island Oysters a few weeks ago, I asked for a doggy bag to take home these oyster shells so that I could sketch them. I finally did it, and enjoyed drawing all the rumples and bumps and ridges. Then I painted them with gouache and voila! another sketchbook completed.

I’m finding that using M. Graham and Schmincke gouache paints as if they were watercolors is a very pleasing way to work.  I haven’t quite gotten the hang of using them properly opaquely, but using them transparently is quite exciting as they have more pigment load than regular watercolor.

To see if I could figure out what I was doing wrong, I studied my beloved Moira Kalmanbook, The Principles of Uncertainty, since she paints her wonderful, quirky illustrations in gouache. I  saw that what I was considering flaws and errors in my application are actually—at least in her work— just part of the character of painting with gouache.

Gouache is such a flexible medium. You can use it opaquely, flat and smooth as in posters; painterly like with oil paints; or transparently as if it were watercolor. Now I’m craving oysters again — some to eat and some to paint.

Categories
Dreams Faces Gouache Painting Sketchbook Pages

Dreaming in Color of Beautiful Birds

Woodpecker Dream, Gouache & Ink
Woodpecker Dream, Gouache & Ink

Do you dream in full color? I dreamt I spotted the most beautiful woodpecker, and in my dream I noted that it was in gorgeous golds, ochres and siennas. The woodpecker, aside from it’s unique coloroing, looked just like the California Stellar Jays I see in my neighborhood, complete with peanut in mouth and nothing like a woodpecker. (Not that I’ve ever seen a woodpecker, although I have heard them).

Lime Mohawk Bird, Goauche
Lime Mohawk Bird, Goauche

Then I spotted another beautiful bird with, as I noted in the dream, a lime-colored Mohawk. Actually, in the dream I think I called it a “faux-hawk” because there’s something about the way”faux-hawk” sounds that pleases me.  This bird made horrible Peacock noises.

Mermaid Hair, Gouache
Mermaid Hair, Gouache

The next dream carried on with the odd colored top-knot theme. The long, black, silky, beautiful, Latina hair of the girl next door had been bleached white and then died mint green so she’d look more like the Disney mermaid princesses she seems to like so much.

These were all done with gouache in the large Moleskine watercolor notebook.

Categories
Art supplies Flower Art Glass Gouache Sketchbook Pages Still Life

Experimenting with Gouache & Rotring Art Pen

Last roses, ink and gouache
Last roses, ink and gouache

I  saved two rose buds to paint when I pruned my roses last week (in case winter ever comes to the San Francisco Bay Area—it’s been ridiculously hot and sunny). By the time I could get back in the studio, one bud had opened and my order of M. Graham and Schmincke gouache arrived. Although I planned to test the new gouache by making color charts first, I knew the roses wouldn’t hold up much longer. Also included in my art supply order was a new Rotring Art Pen.

I tried out the gouache and pen in the sketch above. I also wrote a quickie review of the Rotring Art Pen and offer some technical information about gouache by experts on the subject. If you’d like to know more about gouache or the pen, please click the “Continue reading” link below.

Continue reading “Experimenting with Gouache & Rotring Art Pen”
Categories
Drawing Flower Art Gouache Painting Still Life

Playing with my flowers

20080521-black+gouache-mothersday-flowers

White ink, gouache on black Canford paper 10″x8″ (larger)

I got home from work just as my painting group was arriving for our weekly painting session in my studio. I grabbed a quick bowl of shredded wheat for dinner, fed the cats and plopped this little vase of white flowers on my drawing table.

I looked at the dainty, delicate white flowers, and feeling a little rebellious decided to draw them with white ink (using my favorite white ink pen, a Uni-ball Signo) on black paper, with no idea what I’d do after that. This was a “let’s try this and that and see what happens” sort of thing.

Once I had the drawing I decided to fool around with adding a little gouache. Just for fun I stopped before I’d covered all the petals, leaving some random black spots.

What I discovered is how much fun it is to paint with gouache on a dark background, which I’d never done before. It reminded me of those cool coloring books I always wanted (but rarely got) when I was a kid where you painted with water and the painting appeared magically.

It might have been a “better” painting if I’d paid attention to value, composition, light, etc. but tonight I just felt like playing like a kid, not trying to make a good painting.

Here’s the drawing without the gouache:
20080521-bw-mothersday-flowers

Which do you like better?

Categories
Gouache Painting Sketchbook Pages Still Life

Vegetable Medley to Celebrate: Taxes Done!

Vegetable medley

Gouache on hot-pressed Arches paper, 7×5” (larger)

To celebrate E-filing my taxes tonight I wanted to paint something bright, cheery (and low calorie to make up for all the chocolate I ate while preparing the return). For years I fueled my tax preparation with a big bag of Mother’s Iced Circus Cookies that I stuck in the freezer and munched on until my taxes were done. I needed all that sugar to be able to do the math, understand the forms, and reward myself for doing such an unpleasant task.

This year I skipped the toxic cookies (loaded with artificial color, flavor and hydrogenated fats but oh so yummy)…and bought organic, fair trade chocolate at my neighborhood health food store, El Cerrito Natural. I waited a week to let the tax returns “simmer on the back burner” to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything. Then tonight I reviewed everything and clicked “Submit.”

It’s much easier to do taxes these days: Turbotax does the math and I just have to gather and enter all the information. But I still experience all the same old fear and loathing plus resentment at where my tax money goes. But it’s done for another year! Woohoo!