Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Shade garden studies


I've been wanting to do a larger painting of our shade garden, like, SOFA sized, so I decided to do some sketches first. Yesterday I worked on a few pencil sketches, and this morning I did the color sketch on the bottom. It's painted with gouache, which I used to use all the time as an illustrator, but haven't used for probably a couple of years. I was disappointed but not surprised to find that a number of my tubes of paint had dried up, but there was still enough usable paint to make it work.

7 comments:

Janice Souza Thurston said...

SOFA SIZE! WOW that's really exciting considering all the new thinking involved. Very challenging in the translation. I'll bet your adrenaline is waking you up earlier than usual...is it?

Paula Villanova said...

The coloration of the plants is right on...this is beautiful. I wonder if the colors available in gouache vary from acrylics or oils?

Kathy Weber said...

It might end up loveseat size... I stretched a 22" x 40" canvas for this. Not huge although still large for me. Paula, I think the pigments are the same for all paints, just the binder changes. Gouache has a lovely matte finish , maybe that's why it looks different.

Catherine Jeffrey said...

Colors and the bit of sun peeking through are great. Why did you choose gouache to do the study? Are there properties to it that make it a good quick study choice. I have no experience with it at all.

Kathy Weber said...

Catherine- gouache is an opaque watercolor. It dries immediately and remains water soluble, so if you want to lift some paint after it dries it's not a problem. Drawbacks- it dries lighter than it is wet which takes some getting used to, and it must be framed with glass, just like a watercolor. Otherwise, it's a very versatile medium.

Vicente Herrero said...

Hello, Kathy,this is my first commentary.
I am spanish painter. Congratulations by your works
Regards.

Mary Sheehan Winn said...

wow. I love the way the purple flowers on the hostas take the eye around the canvas. Nice job with the shade situation which is not easy.