A lady in my painting class paints animals so beautifully – lively, colorful, and full of personality. Me, I don’t usually paint animals. I did have fun painting the cats in gouache and sumi-e, so in a desire to expand my, er, repertoire?!, I decided to do some geese.
Painting animals, unless you are doing a portrait, don’t have to look exactly like the subject! Yay! Much less intimidating. So, geese.
Geese have such personality and they make me laugh when you see a bunch of them, necks extended, beaks up in the air. My geese aren’t quite so funny, but here is my donation to the painting of the animal kingdom.
I worked on this painting over several painting class sessions. Often I would put it up on the eraser edge under the white board of the classroom to ignore it and then look at it again, all the while working on another painting. Or munching on something, like cookies, that people like to bring in. Or wandering around to see what other people are doing. For reference, I looked at a lot of photos of white geese, trying to get a sense of their postures and poses.
Summer is always a busy time and I really have done very little as far as artwork or painting. Other things seem to be getting in the way. This afternoon I finally had an open spot and painting in gouache seemed simple enough – simple meaning everything was at hand, the clean up is easy, and I rather liked the challenge of a sunset.
For the past 5 weeks I have been attending a gouache class. It has been one of the most fun and creative classes I have taken. Painting all of a sudden took on the element of play. My tight-ass self was so happy to untight-ass! I totally believe in play and we all, old and young and in between, benefit from that wildly creative and unrestrictive garden of no rules (well, within reason!)
As I mentioned before, my teacher worked for Disney and Warner in animation. 40+ years of experience brings knowledge of techniques and tricks. 5 weeks was short but in the fall there will be an 8 week class, and I will be there. Because of her background in animation, her knowledge of technique is very different than many online teachers and it is based on practical experience. She takes this knowledge and applies it in a clear and creative way. Though we got “samples” to copy from, there was never a “do it this way” but rather a “use your skills to figure out how to do this” as well as applying new skills.
First off, some of the samples we got to work with were clearly identified, and others I have forgotten. If you are an artist whose work we used, let me know if you see your work here.
This exercise was assigned to the class to learn how to do color gradations. Jess Chung, on You Tube, had a study to which we linked and followed along as homework. It was easy and not easy – gradations can be difficult in gouache. What really worked for me was doing the waves. That was an eye-opener. Her video is below.
From this tutorial we moved on to Mary Blair, a famous Disney animation artist who rose to a prominent position because of her creative prowess in a time when most (if not all) animators were men. If you are familiar with “It’s a Small World” at Disneyland in Anaheim, CA, or from the 1964 World’s Fair in NYC, you will be familiar with her work.
The above tree is done on black paper and is derived, I think, from some of Blair’s sketches for the animated film “Alice in Wonderland” by Disney. We did the tree, but the Cheshire Cat was in the picture as well as Alice.
To get the blue-white streak, we mixed blue and white together, very dry, and brushed it all across the black paper upon which we painted. From there, the tree was painted in, over the blue-white streaks (yep, black on black!). Gouache’s opacity worked very well here, as you can see. Then the moon and highlights were added. It makes for a wonderfully mysterious scene.
When I first saw the picture I was thinking “how am I going to paint the blue and white around the tree shape?” This is negative painting and it would be hard. The solution of painting over the colored paint was an eye-opening bit of information and technique.
From Blair we moved on to Frida Kahlo, the Mexican artist who always surprises with her intense colors, rather primitive and surrealistic paintings. Our samples were, I think, derived from people who did Kahlo’s portrait in gouache. Kahlo did not work much – if at all – in gouache, but instead preferred oils. The simple and colorful style of the samples involved utilizing different techniques we learned as well as letting our inner child out to play with colors and non-realistic portraiture. The patterns and colors were fun to do.
And our final artist for inspiration were the paper cutouts by Henri Matisse. Most of us are familiar with his work, so I will not go into details here.
For this project, we painted shapes, such as rectangles and squares, in gouache and then cut them out. From there, we mounted them on a colored piece of paper using glue. I am not sure if we were supposed to do it all on paper painted in gouache – such as leaf shapes – and then cut and paste to the paper and underlying bits already glued on. I just used thick gouache and painted on the white shapes, leaves, circles, dots, and stars in various gouache colors and black and white gouache.
Playtime and different perspective – it was by far a fun, fun class! I wonder what I will do with what that class gave me.
A lot has been happening here, and time just slips away. Additionally, my painting journey has been mostly oil painting, and that takes time. I have been pleased with my progress there. Along with my usual painting class, I have been taking a gouache class, and I have been having so much fun. Our instructor worked for decades in animation at Disney and Warner Brothers, so her background is very different than mine. As a result, it’s a lot of technique gleaned from her 40+ years of experience and exploration into gouache being used differently from my own more painterly approach.
While this painting is more in my usual style, the lessons I have been learning each week are apparent here to me. Maybe not you, but me! The class has made me see and visualize gouache painting differently as well as how to apply it. I could get into the details here, but it’s something I am not in the mood to try to explain. Let it suffice to say I had a delightful time painting this little scene of a track leading to a rape seed field – the bright yellow – and a lavender field beyond. I thought some boulders would be a fun thing to try, and I think they worked out rather well.
Artists gouache, Arches HP 140# paper, approximately 9 x 12 inches.
Cats are still on my mind, but in my painting class a few weeks ago I decided to do something fun and less intense than critters. Pears are always a favorite, to paint and to eat. These were photographed several years ago and were the source for the painting.
I have always liked this photo, partly because of the pears themselves, but also I love the table cloth upon which they rest. It was a present from my MIL, Judy, and it’s always been my favorite one I own. I thought the pears looked especially lovely on it.
The painting itself was pretty much finished in the 2.5 hours of class time I had. I did a few touch ups last week after it had dried. Too often I fail to see things and then wish I had fixed them when I could. So, this sat on my dining table for a week and was completed in class and critiqued.
Photo realism in paintings does not interest me, and generally the same with still lives. This one, though, does please me a lot. I like the way my colors work together, the composition, and the way I handled the paints. It felt really good to paint this!
Ink, Yarn & Beer 