Thursday, April 26, 2012

Talkin' 'Bout the Taurus

One of the most exciting things to happen to me in a long, long time has occured!! I am dabbling in gouache! Today, for the first time. I've been painting in acrylic forever but finally decided to experiment. The results are thus:


I picked up an old, neat book about matadors at the library book sale today, and used it as inspiration for this exercise. Black gouache on watercolor paper.. so fun to actually draw with a paintbrush instead of blocking in sections of colors for hours and hours! This was accomplished in one little afternoon! Now, it is rough.. my drawing skills are pretty withered and getting used to a new medium is challenging (how do you fix mistakes w/ gouache??). I also have a really hard time staying away from color, so I decided to see if you can paint acrylic over gouache (yes you can!). I feel like the possibilities are limitless. I'm so excited to have given it a whirl. The only questions I have are: how to eliminate drag on the brush without losing the opacity of the paint? I suppose the answer is using a smooth surface, like illustration board. Hopefully more gouachey good times to come!