Daggers and flowers

Gouache on Arches CP 8” x 10

Doodling I ended up with this piece. I used the new adquired dagger brushes, which are a little bit awkward to use, but I have yet to discover its qualities. I got one a blend of synthetic and natural hair for watercolor and one fully synthetic for gouache. The other is a liner I wanted so badly because I’m tired of trying to make clean long  lines with a synthetic liner which it never holds enough wash, it hopefully will do. 

CAPA Historic Homes of Joliet

Prarie Style House in Wester Avenue, Joliet, IL
Pen, Ink and Watercolor on Hahnemuhle Sketch&Note Booklet A6

CAPA stands for Cathedral Area Preservation Area, it's a Joliet non profit neighborhood organization to help preserve the historic homes in that area. This organization plans an event called This Olde Housewalk every other year, in which 5 or 6 homes are selected at a time opened to the general public. I attended this event for the first time. I don't know how these owners can deal with hundreds of strange visitors passing through every single room of their houses, stepping into rugs, touching the walls, etc. Well, I'm glad they are OK with this, otherwise we couldn't see beautiful restored home and others in the process of restoration. It is a unique opportunity to admire the surviving homes with several architectural styles built in the United Sates from the mid 1800's to the early 1900's. Joliet was a wealthy town during and after the Industrial Revolution. A good number of houses are beautiful examples of pure or blend styles like Italianate, Queen Ann, Classic, Tudor, Prairie among others.  The first home I visited is the sketch above. I sketched the house after I visited it; the last home I visited is the next sketch, I sketched it while waiting to enter the house. I'd like to share the link of an interesting book about houses in this area if you are a Joliet resident and/or you would like to get it. It's titled Historic Impressions, The history and Architecture of Joliet Homes by P. Seth Magosky, I have it and it's fascinating. 

The tour was interesting and the day was fun.

Tudor Style House in West Acres Rd. Joliet, IL
Pen, Ink and Watercolor on Hahnemuhle Sketch&Note Booklet A6

Gouache trees.

Gouache and watercolor pencil on Bristol 11" x 14"

The idea of getting familiar with a new media is intimidating to me. And we know that the more you practice the more you know how it behaves. It will take me time to master for sure, but after this result I feel hopeful. These is a good variety of trees in my backyard and on a rainy day like today, I thought this would be a good time to practice gouache from  the comfort of my couch. Drawing trees are very forgiven, you can play with lines and textures and it still looks like a tree, but making them look interesting is the real challenge. I wish I made darker greens for the pine trees, but the trees looked more or less in the same value today and that's how I put it on paper. Speaking of paper, I used Smooth Bristol 100 lb instead of watercolor paper because it was the only paper I had large enough to work with gouache. I noticed it takes longer to dry, but time is not an issue when I'm at home. I used the hairdryer anyway. Bristol works for gouache, I find it suitable although it buckles a little. The bright colors and graphic look are lovely. I don't know if I will take gouache to sketch outdoors. I need a lot of water to rinse the paint off the brushes. We'll see, it is, however, a promising media to keep in my studio.

A limited palette.

Pencil and watercolor on Winsor and Newton CP paper 6" x 8"

It works. A limited palette works. I'm very pleased with the color coordination and the cohesiveness you can reach with a limited palette. I really liked the palette we used in Maru Godas' workshop. And although we used gouache, I have to give it a try to the transparent watercolor paint I already had. I skipped the use of Winsor Yellow for this exercise.

Winsor and Newton limited watercolor paint palette.

I finished two pencil drawings I did in my visit to San Francisco at home. I specially liked the first sketch once colored. But I don't dislike the other one either.

Pencil and watercolor on Winsor and Newton CP paper 6" x 8"

A beautiful palette. 

On sale, 2 x 1.

Pen, ink and watercolor on Winsor &Newton CP paper 6" x 8"

There's a coffee shop with only two tables inside the grocery store in my neighborhood. I bought one of those new flavored drinks at the coffee shop in order to feel comfortable as a rightful user of one of the limited tables which I used to paint the entrance view of the grocery store. As you walk in the store, the sales signs bombard you (or at least that's what my radar is tuned on, ha!) While sketching I was making decisions about what fruit or vegetable on sale I was going to get. Who doesn't love sales? Who doesn't love sketching? There you have it. 2 x 1. Two things I like in one day.

San Francisco CA II Part 5 Gouache Like a Child with Maru Godas Workshop

We met at Arch Art Supplies in San Francisco. Maru Godas, an Spanish artist living in Barcelona introduced us to Gouache. An opaque watercolor medium which main characteristic is the matte finished. We started by making dry strokes and water wash stokes to produce a variety of textures and values with black gouache.

Next we did thumbnail sketches from black and white images in 2-3 minutes each, trying to include mixed textures.

The next step was to make a variety of greys with black and white paint. At this point we needed to pay attention at the consistency of the paint wash, which is creamy, in order to produce and even layer of paint. Right after we made another exercise, a thumbnail to apply the different grades of greys and textures.

Right after that we were introduced to a limited palette that she likes a lot, from where you can make mixes of paint to produce a wide variety of vibrant colors.

The brand we used has a good value, since the quality of the paint is good and price is reasonable.

We walked to the floating houses in Mission Bay. She told us to close our eyes, take a deep breath, picture the scene and image it in on our world, forgetting everything we know about how to draw or paint, to think like a child. There we did a couple of thumbnails in full color.

She suggested to make little dots of mixed paint on the side of the paper before painting our subject. This is useful to see if the paint, once dry, is the color we want. This is specially recommended since gouache paint dries darker that when it is wet. And by the way it dries faster than watercolor. Also she said color pencils (also watercolor pencils) and gouache are bests friends. Since color line brings the gouache paint to life, she recommended to use color pencil to make lines only to give information.

Before continuing to our panoramic or full size final painting, she shared with us more colors of  gouache paint. 

Time passed and I almost missed the group photo, but they found me to present to the group the final paint.

The workshop was fun and the 6 hours passed fast.

Photo by Maru Godas (in fact it was Ramon who took the photo, thanks Ramon!)

Maru is an exceptional warm and talented artist. I was very happy to be introduced to gouache by her in the beautiful city of San Francisco.