Bearded Iris

I keep all of my gouache, and gouache/watercolor paintings in Canson watercolor
paper spiral-bound notebooks. I have been doing this for about ten years. I like the paper,
because it doesn't wrikle very much, as long as I confine my composition to a fairly
small area, and it also takes the Cotman watercolors - which I like to combine with
my Caran d'ache gouache paints - very well. Sometimes, if I know I am gong to use
a lot of watercoor in a piece, I will use Liftng Preparation first and allow that to dry
before I start working. That makes it easier to remove any color I may want to. Of
course, this is not essential when working with gouache, because it is opaque, and
you can paint over anything, but sometimes you may want a more transparent area
in your work. I also really enjoy working with the new watercolor canvas that came
out a couple of years ago. You can do virtually anything on that - for watercolorists
it's a dream because it is really easy to life from. As long as you keep your compositions
very small - which mine are, just naturally - you don't need to do any preparation. But,
if you want to use a whole sheet, you need to stretch it just like a piece of regular watercolor
paper, or it will buckle and wrinkle on you. This can be most upsetting. - If you look at my
piece above, you can see that I used both opaque and transparent paint. I particularly like
the curled petal on the bottom right that is very lavendar with a highlight. Then, there is
a semi-transparent wash behind that, that really emphasizes the solidity of the curled petal.
I like the colors in this piece.                                                                                          BID

Rose Tulip

FOR SALE HERE

I am having a real tug of war lately between my oils and my gouache.

I have things I really have to get done in oils. Paintings that are unfinished

make me very uncomfortable.

This morning I painted all morning, but I noticed that my heart just

wasn't in it. Have I become a "gouche painter"? Who knows? But it

sure seems like it. For one thing, it's just so much easier. No solvent,

no washing the brushes when I'm done. And, there is something about

the particular mercurial characteristics of the watercolor and the

gouache that I just love.

We'll I'll just keep this up like this for a while and see how it goes.

Today I asked the angels to help me. I believe that they did.

Thanks for stopping by today.