Gouache - Blog Posts
cucco and chuchu!
Sketchbook Shenanigans.
Berkeley hills study 🌳 🏡 🌲. . . . . . #color #watercolor #gouache #drawing #colorpencil #oakland #california #art #artwork #wip #workinprogress #patterns #berkeley #artistsoninstagram #hockney (at Berkeley, California) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bt9XovGBm37/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1ova445qoyynz
Rock'n'Rolls A bunch of gouache paintings solely created for the pun but then tacos aren't really a roll I guess, ha, whatever, just roll with it, okay? They are all named after 1950s/early 60s rock'n'roll songs.
I did the series back in January, just in time for the Supergraph art fair in February in Melbourne (thanks DHL!).
A4 digital prints are still being sold on the Supergraph website HERE HERE and HERE, if you are interested.
Side note, I was told by an Australian that swiss rolls aren't really a thing down under. Ooops, lost in translation?
I like you - you like you - you like me liking you #trudat #illustration #watercolor #gouache #sumi #instaart #venndiagram
Bat boy!
This little cutie was the subject of another gouache demo given to illustration students at MICA. He's the finish of this work-in-progress shot.
I love him...
I painted a couple of rebels for gouache demos in Alex Fine and Greg Houston's illustration classes. These guys are kind of evil...kinda got a devilish lean to em...the rebels too! (badum chh) (sorry)
I'm always amazed that anything I have to share in demos with classes are things students will appreciate and be able to use, but it's always great. So long as I'm not going off on too many random rants about dumb things then I just hope I'm imparting some tips, and it's a pretty good time.
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HOW DID I NOT KNOW PING WAS ON TUMBLR. FORGIVE ME, PING! I'm super late on the game, so everyone is following her by now, right? Because everyone loves beautiful things, right?
life is better with colors.
"Severian and the Undine" a scene from Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe.
I painted this piece for Seb Mesnard's upcoming gallery event in Paris "The Book Show." Thanks, Seb, for inviting me to participate! You can check out some of the other awesome work on the show blog here.
Book of the New Sun may be my favorite book series of all time. It's so astoundingly good, I don't really have adequate words. It transcends science fiction, fantasy, novel, whatever you want to call it, and is more an epic prose. It's just gorgeous, riveting, mind-blowing imagery and world-making by Gene Wolfe, a writer whose stories change and only get more amazing with each read. Just wow. You guys. You guys need to read it. Jimmy Giegerich introduced me to it. Check out his Severian!
Say! Thanks for the love! For Freddie. Obviously ♥
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Get on your bikes and ride!
Freddie Mercury illustrated by Andrea Kalfas :: via andreakalfas.com
I decided to paint a little Japanese beetle tonight. They have furry stripes on their bellies! #gouache (Taken with instagram)
I painted this skater babe for a demo in Kali Ciesemier's lifestyle illustration class. Fun!
Here's a painting I made for my grandmother on her 85th birthday this last Sunday. I chose calendula and white cosmos because those are October birth flowers, and a skylark for our Danish roots, which all come from her! She's a great lady with all the vigor of someone whose far from 85, and I always love seeing her. I think she liked the gift :)
The trashcan droid from Star Wars, whose name is apparently Gonk? (dumb) Jimmy and I had a moment when we discovered that, growing up, we each felt sorry for this lame little droid stuffed in the corner of that sand crawler because he was so ugly and all the other droids were probably mean to him. That never stopped me from making fun of him either though.
Ultramen
This is my contribution to Vend, Send, Mend, another fundraiser for Japan. Many really talented artists are taking part, and donating excellent, original work to a great cause. You can see more of the work that will be available to buy on the Vend, Send, Mend blog. Check it out!
Oh, and I love Ultraman.
It's been so long! I've missed you all! Sorry about the lack of posts. Lately inspiration has been a little bit scarce, but I thought I'd jump back on the horse with a new kaiju painting! This is Agasukeron, one of my favorites. These colors aren't exactly true to form as far as the figure goes, but I do love some pink every now and then.
Here's a tip: don't paint with gouache on top of reg'lar old acrylic without some sort of matte medium between the two! For some reason my brain turned off and I thought I'd save some gouache by painting the background here in acrylic. Mistake! Ended up using more gouache to keep my colors solid and even. So don't be a noob like me: all gouache, combo gouache and acrylic gouache, or make that acrylic a decent surface to paint on.
Gouache Process
There have been a lot of very kind responses to my gouache paintings recently, as well as a few requests for tips, and so I've decided to do up a little process post. I'm very flattered, and a little intimidated! So, please bear with me as I expose all my clumsy painting techniques. I should say that though I was taught the basics of gouache painting and dry-brushing, I took those and sorta ran off with my own methods, and they may not be the best way of working! Like any artist, I'm always adjusting my process. No doubt my next painting will be created completely differently, but at this point, this is what I do:
So here are my gouache tubes, disposable palettes, and palette knife (and juice!). I don't know if many people use a palette knife when mixing gouache, but I like to so that I can preserve my brushes just a little more. I also save all my palettes throughout each piece, and I've found that I can reuse the gouache pretty easily even on these disposable ones so long as you're patient enough to scrape and break up the dried bits with your knife and water. I've never liked using porcelain or ceramic plates for my palettes, even though they are easier for reusing your dried gouache, only because I run out of space too quickly when I'm mixing and I can't save my colors.
Starting from the beginning! I always try to preserve as much of the energy of my sketches as I can when I pencil out my piece so I'll usually blow them up and light-table them. Our light table has become a hugely valuable tool when I paint. It's homemade! I hate to pencil directly onto the nice paper I'll be painting on, so I'll usually work over the pencils on the light table, like so:
If you think about it digitally, I typically treat this part like it's all about laying in the flats. I'm going to have a relatively dark background, so I'll paint that in last so my lighter colors don't pick it up and get all blotchy from the retouching that would have been required in that case.
I can't ever leave that light table on and step away! Doesn't that look scary with that jar of water, and the table a little askew, and my laptop right there..........?
No harm done! My cat is dainty, and I'm lucky.
So I've gotten most of my girl painted in and I've already started dry-brushing on parts. Usually most of that detail work I'll save till the end, but in some cases it helps to do it before hand. For instance, layering her dress over the dry-brushing I did on her arm (as you can see in the last photo) helps keep things crisp.
Starting on the background, I'm using this as an opportunity to smooth her shape out a bit and clean up any wayward brushstrokes.
It's almost there! Now I get to dry brush! The absolute best part. Plus! I can abandon the light table now and just go to town adding details and cleaning things up. This is where I go back to my palettes and reuse a lot of my gouache. I've made the mistake of mixing too little at the beginning and only realizing it at this step and that is no fun! Gouache can be finicky with color matching, so I try to avoid remixing a color from scratch at this point because of that. Also, different colors may dry darker or lighter than when they're wet, which may depend on the brand you're buying. I use Winsor & Newton and Daler Rowney (cheaper!). Some colors work better per brand in my experience. For instance, I hate Daler Rowney's yellow ocher. It always dries in the tube on me and has a weird semigloss, whereas Winsor & Newton's is great. Conversely, I've found Winsor & Newton's turquoise blue to be super oily, like, oil with some blue in it.
Anyway, heading towards the finish...
There she is! All done. I've added my line work for the little firework sparks, and dry-brushing the light and shadow has carried it home. I hope this has been neat and informative. If you want to talk more gouache techniques or what not with me, feel free to ask! Thanks again for all the encouragement, guys!
I did this piece for the magnanimous Meg Hunt's new endeavor Art For Japan, an auction she organized with her sister that will send proceeds to help relief efforts in Japan. Keep an eye on their blog for updates as to when the auctions will take place and check out all the other great work people have donated!
Now then...process post? Coming right up!
Hello little guy. Amidst the stress of filing taxes, a cruelly indecisive springtime, and car insurance payments, this little robin was born. Sometimes you just need to make something pretty and meaningless.
The smog monster
It's Hedorah! A glow-in-the-dark blue and pink color way Hedorah, which is one of mine from our collection. There are so many great variations for Hedorah figures. It's definitely one of my favorites and its respective film is real wacky.
Here's some more little slobs!
kaiju!
My boyfriend Jimmy and I (much more rarely on my part) collect kaiju figures, and as you can see, we have a good amount (though not compared to the hard core collectors). So, since I see these every time I enter my door, and because they're really a lot of fun and have some wild designs, I decided to do a little painting of Kittyfire. She's one of the few female giant monsters and you can see her there in the right corner of the photo. So many of them have such awesome color variations and this figure has one of my favorites: red-orange on a glow-in-the-dark base. Very nice.
Next I definitely want to paint some Hedorahs once I clear my plate a little! And Agasukeron! Heck yes.
COLOSSAL TITAN PAINTING 💥
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y'all seem to vibe with the majority of the trad art i've shared, here's a bit of what i was doing back in 2022