November 16th

Still Playing with Gouache

This little painting is really too awful for words, but I'm going to talk about it anyway.  I am always saying we aren't after a masterpiece every time we pick up the brush.  How will I ever learn to use gouache if I don't experiment?  I couldn't leave this alone, and it has layer after botched layer on the light weight paper.  I think if gouache is layered too heavily, it will crack, so if I feel myself coming close to a masterpiece, I'll remember that.

Doing this painting made me think of a painting I did when I was a little kid. Even the smell of the paint today took me back there.   I had been given a set of paints in jars, and I was painting a beach with palm trees.   I left that long-ago painting somewhere accessible to our dog, and he licked off the paint!!!  I learned a few lessons from that licked painting  -  have a place of your own to paint, it's all about the journey not the finished product, and use materials that dogs don't find tasty.