Category: Chatter

Tanglewood (Gouache)

The second painting in my series of three, in three different media.  Today this is in gouache.  My previous post showed the photo from which these paintings are derived, as well as the pastel which I did the other day.

To date, I think this is one of the better paintings in gouache I have done.  Two differences here:  1)  I used hot pressed Arches paper rather than cold pressed.  2)  I made sure I kept my paints moist by spritzing them, and covering them with saran wrap between painting sessions – keeping the paints moist made the job of painting much easier.

Smoother paper (hot pressed) allowed the paint to move more easily on the paper.  Keeping the paint moist added to that experience.   I really put effort into keeping the paint about the consistency of cream and spritzed the paints when they stopped looking glossy.  The only area I rather wonder about is the right middle ground – I may want to redo that a bit.

 

Tanglewood (Pastels)

Another series of three to emerge from this Land of Pandemica, where house arrest prevails and imagination runs wild!

I took this picture about a month ago, just as the shelter-in-mandate order came down from on high.  I really like this picture because of its moodiness and the brightness of the leaves.  It looks pretty mysterious, but in reality that is an effect of the editing.  Still, I like it enough to give it an attempt for a number of reasons!  There is a rhythm in the trees and their curves.  The leaves on the ground lie fairly horizontally, while the green leaves are vertical.  All these conspire to challenge me . . . So, without further ado, below is the first attempt, in pastels as today is dedicated to pastels!

As you can see, I moved the leaves from vertical to a bit more diagonal.  I also added some “stuff” to the lower left corner as the original photo was pretty dark and lacking in detail.  The floor of last year’s leaves are more orange than beige.  I tried to pay attention to my marks – the stroke of the pastel stick – as well as to doing some negative painting to help the lighter areas stand out.

I am a fairly pleased with this painting.  Pastels are more forgiving than either gouache or watercolor – especially watercolor! – and because of this, I can think about contrast and structure a bit as I go along.  It may make the final one (watercolor) easier to do after the next one, which will be in gouache.

 

The Slough II (Watecolor)

The last version of “The Slough, II” – at least for now!  This is in watercolor, and it was actually fairly easy to render as I have now painted the same image 3 times, 6 if you consider the first series.  Perspective is okay, but rendering of distance along the beach across the water is a bit problematic.  Rather than using a pencil to create the drawing, I used a dagger brush and Quinacridone Gold to outline the shapes.  I left the cliffs totally white and then added crevasses and such with varying colors.

Doing a whole series, in different media, of the same subject has been so much fun!  I expect I will continue to do so.  Daily painting – pastels, gouache, and watercolor – is becoming the central focus of most of my days, unless I am sewing masks or just need a change of pace.  Too much of one thing doesn’t sit well with me – that’s why I use so many different media!  I get bored easily and the monkey mind screams out . . .

The Slough II (Pastels)

A second rendition of “The Slough, II”, this time in pastels on Mi Teintes 9×12 paper.  Perspective is fixed, and I like this version so much better!

The original “The Slough, II” was done in gouache a few days ago – you can see it in my earlier post.  That version was totally wackadoodle in the world of real perspective – the only part that worked out was the front curve of sand, whereas the midground and background didn’t work.  Fraggy (another blogger!) had some good insights about the issues.

In thinking about Fraggy’s comments as well as reviewing what I did, I really have no excuse.  I just did a very, very poor drawing on the paper, sort of sketching things in without checking their relationships.  So, today, I worked on the drawing a bit, and the result is much better.  I considered vanishing points and straight lines, et cetera, et cetera.

I really feel so at home with pastels.  My only complaint is that the end product is easily smeared, even with the use of “final” fixatives.  I need to research that a bit . . .