Fruit Painted in Gouache in my Sketchbook
Just about the time I was thinking it would really be fun to try gouache on the colorful Mi Teintes paper, an artist friend, Hennie, gave me a ziplock bag full of tubes to play with. This is my first attempt, and was it ever fun!The dish was really patterned with flowers in primary colors, but when I got to that point, I was really liking the "flatness" of the shapes and didn't want to complicate things. Hennie paints large, simple shapes on full sheets of watercolor paper - she gets a very smooth, almost suede-like finish.
Gouache is a water based paint that comes in tubes like watercolor. It is very opaque with a mat finish, and unlike watercolor, it is painted dark to light, instead of light to dark. Fun! Thanks, Hennie. I think I'm hooked.
I gave my class an assignment of watercolor sketching at least one page in their sketchbooks of some of the dishes they pull out this time of year as they get ready for Thanksgiving dinner. Drawing objects in our homes makes us appreciate our surroundings a little more.