Day 223 (Fri Aug 11) “Gouache is not for me… neither are coloring books, apparently”

Okay, I realize I haven’t given gouache a fair shake. Or coloring books, for that matter. But I don’t particularly enjoy either. I can think of times when gouache paints would be great… honestly it may really be these pans. No other company that I could find makes gouache in pans, and maybe that’s why…  I just don’t like the way they feel. I am not totally giving up on them. I think I’d really like my results if I do a few more things… but I so enjoy the way watercolor paint moves and feels that I think for now I will spend the little art time I have on ink or watercolor, or something I really like laying down on the paper. I’ll come back to gouache later, and I do think sometime I will try some tubes and see if I like those better.

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I followed a video by Lisa Marie of Sketching Scarlet on youtube. Her idea. I tried it twice.

PS if you like to paint, and you like coloring books, you may like to try these pans. They actually were really good on the coloring book page and are super vivid. They go on and look like markers to me. Once on the page, you can’t really move the paint around much like you can with watercolor (see the dark green blob between the two fish?) And they layer like some of the alcohol markers do.

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Day 222 (Thurs Aug 10) Gouache

I have been eager to try gouache paints. I’d never even heard of them before this year… a 600 year old medium, kind of a marriage of watercolor and acrylic in behavior. Can be watered down and flow together like watercolor, can be used light on top of dark like acrylic, can be built up in heavy strokes like oil… Maybe the best of both worlds? I found this set of caran d’ache gouache pans, the only pan set I could find… They remind me of tempera paints, and even say poster paints in one place. A kind of chalky finish of the final product I’m not crazy about. I can see the benefit to using tubes instead of pans, and being able to use thicker paint. It was strange after all this time learning to leave white spaces white, to now add them in with paint… I don’t know if I liked it or not!

The set came with a number 8 caran d’ache brush as well, which works nicely so far. I followed a video by Myriam Tillson, at a vlog called Myriam’s Illustrations on Youtube. Mine didn’t end up looking much like hers… but enough that I knew I’d better say it was her idea! I think tomorrow I may try a more coloring book type thing.

 

Day 220 (Tues Aug 8) inky dragon

I follow a lot of different artist’s blogs… one is PMU Ink, and today, feeling again no inspiration, I copied her Lucky Little Dragon… I changed it a little, but it’s mostly hers. She posts a different drawing each day, and uses the same style with each. Very creative and precise. Tidy. I love her stuff! Go check it out. (update: actually her blog is called Daily Doodle, at pmuink.com)

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