Apple-Pine: Gouache

Showing posts with label Gouache. Show all posts

Notable Eggplants of this Year

I am a big fan of eggplants - the color, texture, shape, and, as I found out this year, leaves and flowers - all are beautiful, unexpected and inspiring!

This year we had a very first eggplant plant (in a pot) that gave us several gorgeously purple and star-shaped flowers that were looking down, and then a lovely berry (did you know these are berries??), even though someone tried to eat before us (see sketch below).

Then my Dad scored stripy eggplants and was super excited to hear that I've never seen anything like that. And then I got a present of an eggplant with a nose! What a year!

We learned how to make a super tasty Baba ghanoush - before we learned how to spell it :) I should probably draw the recipe before the season is over and we stop making it.

Gouache Reconstitution Process

I've been working with a watercolor+gouache palette for some time now, and also kept a whole bunch of gouache colors - pre-mixed in various ways. The system is not really systematic - it is more of an "oh, I mixed a really cool color and I will carry it with me for some time" situation. So here is how it looks:

I wanted to adjust some of these mixes and realized that a couple of my gouache tubes are completely dry - as in brick dry. Below is a record of my experiment I did to reconstitute them back to life (successful, if a bit messy).

Summer Travel: Toronto: Urban Sketching Breaks!

I visited Toronto for almost a week, and on some of the days, I got to paint this beautiful city. I was super lucky with the weather and enjoyed the company of the kind people of Toronto a lot!

The first three sketches were done with ink, and then I added color with my gouache and watercolor palette. In the first sketch, I was afraid that it might rain, and in both the second and third sketches, I was not sure how much time I had, so I wanted to capture the scene with ink before deciding on adding paint and details.

The last sketch - of one of the many library branches I had more time and painted it without using lines or ink - directly with the watercolor and gouache paint in my horizontal fabriano watercolor sketchbook. It was a wonderful day to be outside and after sketching I got a soft serve from an ice cream truck and did a little people watching by the tennis court (hands were busy holding sketchbook and eating ice cream so no sketches from the match but it was entertaining!).

Taking a stock of my current palette by painting an artichoke flower.

I've been on a "let's rethink the palettes" track of thinking (sub-set of "let's think how to NOT take all the art supplies you own with you when you go drawing on location"). But making it all happen required taking stock of what I've been using lately and what I want to do going forward. So I went to paint on location with my main palette of late, where I have both watercolors and gouache. This little artichoke is what I ended up with. And below is an older sketch record where you can see what's in this palette (helps me as a reference). And I ended up keeping the same set of colors for now - just refilling some that were used up.

Seattle 2025: Sketcher Fest Edmonds - Part 4: Sketching Across the Water

Watching the ferry go back and forth became such a part of my days during Edmonds Sketcher Fest that I just had to get on it!

Ferry is a beautiful boat designed to be double-ended (meaning there is a propeller on each side and the vessel does not need to turn around), is a part of the public transportation system of the Washington State, and is a wonderful way of getting around!

I went on the Kingston Ferry two times: once as a part of the post-Sketcher-Fest outing with a bunch of people who were sketching too (Thank you for driving and conversation, Nishant!). I got to see Port Gamble and enjoyed a wonderful walk from the church to the water and back.

And second time with the family - to explore forests on the Olympic peninsula, flip some rocks on the beach at the tide-out, watch people and dogs, and eat a crepe lunch. Here are some sketches from both outings.

Seattle 2025: Sketcher Fest Edmonds - Part 3: The experience (in sketches and IDEAS for the next time)

I just posted an attempt to summarize my experience at Edmonds Sketcher Fest in words and photos.

And these are my sketches made during all the little and big things that happened during the weekend.

I wish I had sketched more! Next time I will:

- do a portrait party with all who could be persuaded;

- find a way to attend more artist talks (can we have a volunteer man the table from time to time during the sketchbook fair?)

- Find a company to draw sunrises and not only sunsets.

- bring some stickers to share (I got a collection from other artists!)

- petition for a "private viewing" hour before the sketchbook fair opens up to go and flip through sketchbooks of other artists;

- ask people all the questions I was shy to ask :)

Paint Accident

I opened up a tube of wonderful paint and A LOT of it came out right onto my page. It took me several passes to get it to look like a bouquet of roses that I wanted to paint to begin with. Can you guess what color it was?

After this disaster I had to paint this beautiful fragrant bouquet again :)

These are all watercolors but very opaque kinds. I would probably use them more as a gouache, in fact, I am seriously thinking of making a palette with them but not sure that the spillage would not continue even from pans.

Peony Garden Adventure

Well, this was supposed to be the year when I finally made it to the peony garden up in the hills above Silicon Valley. I've heard about it many times, I tried to get to it several times (all funny stories of when I followed the directions of "just up the same road" and went on foot (turned around in 30 min). Then another time I tried to go by car from the Iris garden side and almost ran out of gas... Then I was late and the garden was closed. But this year I got some bullet-proof directions, checked that that it was still open, packed a backpack with colors I wanted to use, and almost remembered to get some gas.... and... well, I got in but basically I was late. We had a few very hot days right before and I think the season was over even before that. There were many petals on the floor and many green bushes with very few flowers and all were way past their prime.

As a consolation, I used a shadow from my car to look from the top of the hill to the hills and the rest of the farm. It was a great little trip!

Iris Garden at the End of the Season

I made another trip up into the hills to see the irises at Nola's Iris Garden. The place was as magical at the end of the season as it was at the beginning. Different colors of irises were blooming, there were very few people, and a perfect bench for painting a whole field of flowers with the hills was found. It was quite a spontaneous outing and al always not long enough, but a perfect day. I spoke to a human organizing iris rhizomes for selling and got a couple of fry flowers to bring home and sketch later. Click on the image to see more notes from the day.

Two Avocados that I did Not Eat

For a few days this spring I followed how avocados were slowly devoured by a mysterious creature. First, there was a gnawed-upon avocado on the ground. Then every morning I would find new teeth marks and a little less avocado left. I thought of fascination with these half-eaten single-seeded berries can be compared to an orthodont looking at teeth marks on a piece of chocolate, but then realized that it reminded me of Gerald Durrell's books and how much attention was given to what diet worked and what did not - for each of his animals. I sincerely was hoping the mysterious creature was enjoying the meal and toyed with the idea of continuing the feedings and installing a motion-activated camera to get to know them better ;) But then they stopped being interested in this food source! The question of avocado color remains though.

House with Tulips

This was one of those outings that was planned, then did not happen on time, and then happened unexpectedly on a different day. And it was such a good part of my week that I loved these two sketches for that only. However, I struggled a lot with the shapes of the house and lack of focus on the page. I was overwhelmed by the abundance of shapes and colors, and let go of all the thinking and only moved paint on the page until it was time to run to the next thing in my day. Gouache is a perfect medium for this way of working I think - there is much layering on this page with paint, pencils, crayons - and it allowed me to create all the iterations. Click on the image to see it larger.

Two More Vacation Sunsets

One of the things that I was looking forward on vacation was sunsets and they did not disappoint!