The Gouache Class Has Ended

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.

Summer Fields

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.

Bosc Pears on a Table Cloth

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!

Oils on canvas board, 11×14.

Landscape in Ink & Color

Traditional landscape painting in ink does not focus on realism. Instead, it works to capture the spirit of a place. Brush strokes are key as painting in black, white, and shades of grey can be challenging. Once the brush touches the paper, you leave a mark you cannot remove. So – think! Landscapes can be complex and it is very easy to make a mess. Even thinking in terms of masses of shade and shape is hard, because how do you convey the texture of a flowery field in ink without color?

The absorbent qualities of the xuen paper really make me work. It holds onto water and ink a long time before it dries. I found this out as I painted – the black kept spreading outward from my brush tip, and if I hadn’t pressed the water out of my brush before picking up more, the black became grey and the water was on the paper and in the paper forever! It seemed to spread forever. Even using a hair dryer didn’t seem to speed up the drying process. The challenge of ink painting is forethought.

Not a great landscape. Will color make it any better or interesting?

Kuretake makes traditional Japanese Gansai paints, of which I have a few colors! I decided to use these a day after the original landscape had been painted. Most of the painting I re-wet in sections to see how the colors would blur into one another. Some areas, like the rocks in the lower right hand side, I did on dry paper with a fairly dry brush but diluted paint. The Gansai colors vary in intensity, so the diluted paint seemed to be a good starting point. The bright yellow is a mistake – too intense although diluted. At this point I used a bit of scrap paper to test colors before painting.

Most of the colors were applied wet-on-wet. In the end, this painting makes me think of hand-colored photographs from the early 1900s.

Yasutomo Liquid Sumi Ink, “Jade Plate” double xuen paper.

Inky Kits

Cats continue!

This time, I worked free hand (no preliminary sketches on the paper) using “Jade Plate” Double Xuan paper from Oriental Art Supply in Huntington Beach, CA. It is a paper where the moisture is more easily controlled. This is the first time I used it. Like watercolor paper, sizing and so on determines how quickly the paper absorbs moisture. So far, so very good.

The ink I used is the Yasutomo Liquid Sumi Ink, a pre-mixed ink that uses the same ingredients which make up traditional Japanese ink sticks. It smells very nice, too. I chose to use bottled ink because I was more interested in painting than using an ink stick. Be aware that not all liquid sumi ink is of good quality – my opinion, this is the best.

Of course you are looking at this and going, “Huh?!” I do, too. But, the fact is, I had a sheet of paper and made sketches of cats, starting in the center, and rotating the paper to create the next cat. Below, I present them to you in the order I did them.

This is the first one I did, centered on the paper. Not having used this paper before, I needed to use washes and ink of varying degrees of value to get a better sense of the paper. My brush was fairly dry as I blotted it on paper toweling a lot, usually in between adding ink.

And then the one above. The second one. Here, more focused on sketching with a dryish brush using very light ink mixed with water. After letting the wash dry, the darker ink was applied using a very dry brush.

This third painting, as with the second, had a light outline in pale ink, but from there I moved into stronger ink and bolder brush strokes. I focused maintaining the white of the inside of the nearest ear while working to express the dark fur of the cat.

Kitty #4 is a kitten, looking up. Here, I wanted to work on that perspective – the upward movement and the shape of the cat’s head and ears. I was getting lazy, perhaps, as I did not focus as closely on monitoring my brush dampness when applying my ink. You can see it in the way the ink blooms outward a bit and there are not sharp lines.

And the last, a totally white cat on a white background on white paper. The ways to do this is to suggest by a few discreet brush strokes and pale ink.

I forgot how much I enjoy ink by itself. Working free hand with a brush or pen is a challenge, but it feels so comfortable and natural. The double xuan paper adds to the experience as the tactile elements just extend into the hand and brush and back. I used only one brush, too, for all these paintings. Asian brushes, when I first began to use them, annoyed and frustrated me. They are very different from most traditional Western ones because they are very flexible. They feel soft and floppy but come to a fine point when shaped on the edge of the water container or ink stone. Learning how to control them is like herding cats – it seems impossible, but it can be done.

More to come – cats and ink and who knows what!