Smooth, creamy and delicious

The Artist March 2014

Smooth, creamy and delicious but not chocolate, whatever could it be? Oh yes, it's my thoughts on painting with gouache paints, gathered together in this month's The Artist magazine which is available to buy in shops in the UK now. Apparently you can also find it in the USA in Barnes book stores, that's groovy!

There are so many reasons to love gouache and here's a few -

No using solvents or mediums, just good old water.

You can re-use dried up paint on the palette, by wetting it again.

You can add highlights later, no need to plan ahead in the same way you have to with watercolours.

You can easily combine with other media, for example watercolours and drawing media.

They dry with that soft matt finish.

They make ideal, forgiving, paints for beginners.

You don't need much in the way of equipment.

They don't kill your brushes.*

Here's another gouache painting exploiting the gouache at a fluid creamy consistency and laying down adjacent areas of flat colour. This one sold at my exhibition last month. It was one of only two glazed (framed under glass) pieces in the whole exhibition!

Crab hut at Brancaster Staithe
SOLD

* Never killed any of mine with gouache anyway, you may know different!

Orchard in the snow

Orchard in the snow
Watercolour and gouache

The days are too short and too dark at the moment, and now we have 70mph gales! On Tuesday our heating stopped working but luckily it was fixed yesterday. Then today we've had a power cut lasting most of the afternoon, but fortunately it's back on just in time for darkness falling. Amazing what you miss without electricity ... heating, wifi, phone and coffee to name just a few!

Anyway here's a cheery scene, a glowing watercolour that I painted recently. There's no actual snow here yet but they're saying blizzards are on their way so watch this space...

I started with wet into wet watercolour for the yellow and orange glow, and while this wash was still damp I used a darker warm colour to start to describe the background tree shapes.

Closer trees and a little bit of fence went in next...

Establishing the darkest darks is tricky to get right in watercolour, remember it dries a lot lighter than it looks when you put it on. It's a good idea to have a little test sheet nearby to try out your colours on.

Some purple shadow washes and the addition of a few chickens in watercolour, and then I finished off in gouache putting some warm whites back into the sunlit snow.

If you're in Scotland, Wales, the north of England or East Anglia, especially by the coast, I hope you manage ok tonight with the storms. 

Backlighting at Brancaster Staithe

Boat sheds at Brancaster Staithe
SOLD

Here's a better look at the two paintings from my day in Norfolk last week. I could have done with a little bit more time on the oil sketch above, but I spent long enough absorbed in it and have a pretty good memory of the scene. This is my new 'red sail', meaning that this subject got me hugely excited and gave me goose bumps just like the moment in Paimpol harbour in August when the red sail went up on the boat.

These days I take that as a sure sign that I can develop the motif further with a studio painting.

It's amazing how our art practice evolves and develops. A year ago I would have told you I had no interest in studio painting whatsoever. That in my eyes all of the excitement and vitality was to be found outdoors. Now I realise what I was missing then. I can get that excitement in the studio but here's the secret - I have to have been immersed in the subject first. I have to have been there, experienced the sights and sounds, and painted there on location. I have to absorb, study, capture the subject from life first.

As I've always said to my students I'm not big on imagination. Working directly from the subject feeds my ideas.

The bonus of my new method of working is that I have the plein air study with me to work from in the studio as an aide-memoire.

This is definitely my new 'red sail' so watch this space, as they say.

My afternoon painting from the day was this quiet one, painted on watercolour paper with a limited palette of gouache colours - burnt sienna, ultramarine, cerulean blue, yellow ochre and white.

Reflections at Brancaster Staithe
Gouache