Friday 25 May 2012

More White Gouache

Having finished my stint of work, it is with great joy that I am able to get out into the garden again and also get out my paint brush and have some time in the studio. Eager to try some more of this acrylic gouache work, I selected a picture I took last year of some fairly straight forward white roses. They do not have too many petals and open to show lovely brown and gold stamens which are a lovely contrast to the white.
I made a fairly careful drawing of two of the blooms, on my usual Fabriano Extra White.


The next step was to cover the paper in a wash of a variety of colours that I wanted in the background. I kept it fairly light at this stage, as some of the background areas would need to be fairly light, and any dark areas could be added later. I knew that by covering the pencil lines with paint, I would not be able to readily erase them, but this did not overly concern me as the gouache would obliterate them as I painted each petal. When the background was completely dry, I started the exciting bit of painting the petals, and adding some strong oranges in the middle for the stamens.



During the paintingof each petal, I used lots of water, both on my brush and in an aerosol, to make the gouache travel along the paper, and to blend with the pale parts of the background, in the hope of getting some lost edges. I had to be ready for some odd things to happen, and each stage was a sharp learning curve. Having completed the first flower, I repeated the process with the second rose and added colour to the gouache to paint in shadows and darker petals where they were required. I was careful to only paint parts of some of the petals to give, I hope, interesting highlights.


 


Once both flowers were painted, I adjusted the shadows, darkened background areas where necessary to make the whites more punchy, and also added a few new colours. To loosen the whole thing up, I liberally splattered the whole painting with lots of white gouache, and a small amount of browns and pinks where I thought it helped the composition. Finally I added some tiny areas of bright red at the very centres of the flowers.



I am really pleased with the effect this type of approach gives to a painting, but although I will return to it now and again, I will still continue to use the traditional methods which I enjoy so much. But it is great fun experimenting!! It may be of interest to note that the painting used one hell of a lot of acrylic gouache!

14 comments:

  1. My word, this is another beauty.

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    1. Thanks once again Ann. I am not sure if this gouache technique will work on anything other than the palest subjects, so I will have to trawl my photo collection to see what else I can find.

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  2. Hello Yvonne:) Amazing! I'm so happy I dicovered your blog. A whole new world opened for me. Thank you so much. Your flowers are beautiful!

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    1. I'm really glad you enjoy the posts. I get lots of pleasure from looking at other artists work, so I am pleased to give a little in return.

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  3. Stunning flowers,Yvonne!Very well done!!!Thanks for sharing!

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  4. Yvonne, preciosas flores. Gracias por mostrarlas!!

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    1. Gracias, Sonia, Me alegro que haya disfrutado viendo.

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  5. These are gorgeous and I love seeing your process!

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    1. Thanks Cynthia. I really appreciate your interest. I hope I do not disappoint when I post my 'Club' efforts as they are very much 2hr paintings and not my choice of topic, so they do not have the amount of work put into them like the flowers.Let me know what you think after the next post!!

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  6. Es ist eine geniale Präsentation. Dein Bild ist wundervoll:-)

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    1. Vielen Danke fur Eure Lieben Kommentare. Ich schatze sie.

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  7. Replies
    1. Don't think so, somehow, but thanks for the compliment. Maybe I am getting there, gradually!!

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