Wednesday, No Fish, 8x10

Another day with sun and few clouds and, between chores, I stopped long enough to paint this which I had been meaning to get to for at least a year.  I can't help myself.  Try as I might to tone things down I still see all this color which hypnotizes me into its spell.

By the time I was cleaning up the tide had made the boat and dock level and much of the charm had vanished.

Cloud Break, 8x10

When the Spring weather breaks begin to happen we know that Summer will be somewhere close behind.  This painting starts the plein air season for me and a pleasure it was to once again sit in the sun, talk to the passing dogs (who always want to sniff the paint), and put a brush to canvas.

My hand feels a little outdoor rusty but with luck we will have improving weather and more paintings will loosen things up.  Come and join me...

Gouache is Not Hungarian Hotdish Revisited

The gouache workshop was a great success, although at the end I was completely 'bushed'.  Despite a hectic pace we all survived and put out some fine work.

Here are two of the demos I did for the class.  The first is on toned paper and relies on the opaque qualities of the medium.  The paper combines with the paint and shows through in places, but most of the piece is thick paint that obscures the paper.

This quick second demo only has a few opaque parts with the majority of the white paper glowing through, relying on the the ability of gouache to look and work like watercolor.  Well, it actually is watercolor.

The first exercise was to learn about the paint by playing on toned paper using three primary related colors.  Exciting and colorful results were generated and all were such different expressions reminding me of how uniquely we all see and experience the world.

And here they are playing intensely in an exercise I call 'Interior Landscape".

 

This group got me re-enthused to not only paint more in gouache but to have another workshop.  It's so much fun to have had a room full of artists willing to try whatever I threw at them....and actually look like they were enjoying themselves.

Snively Tug, 8x11

Just another reminder that the Gouache Workshop begins Friday evening.

Snively Tug is from this morning when I thought that I had better see if I could still paint in gouache.  You never know.  The magic may have suddenly taken a vacation and I'd be left high and dry.  Fortunately my confidence was renewed and this medium re-mesmerized me with it's ability make interesting paintings with a minimum of work....actually more like play.

Gouache is Not Hungarian Hotdish

Friday and Saturday are scheduled for a workshop on painting in one of my favorite mediums, gouache.  The first exercise we will do is experimenting with color.  While it is a good idea to make color charts, they are time consuming and a bit too linear for me.  (Yes, I do them anyway.)

Instead, we will be doing abstracts.  In this illustration I've selected three primaries and just using two at a time made small paintings in which one of the two hues is emphasized.  The last two use all three pigments.  This is a good way to play with color, shape, value and composition while still finding out some of the color possibilities without making a chart.

Interested?  Sign up by Thursday evening at Oil and Water Art Supply.