LITTLE GEMS 16

©Maggie Latham 2009

5 x5 inch .....gouache and watercolour on watercolour paper. This was inspired by a cold January morning with mist coming in and snow in the air....

COLOUR CHARTS 1

Keeping colour mixing notes like this in a three ring binder is an easy solution to keeping everything in one place.

SKETCHBOOK 2

These are from April '08....

These little colour studies are pure gouache on paper primed with pastel primer, then mounted in my sketchbook. ...the gritty surface holds gouache well, but chews up your brushes!

SKETCHBOOK 1

Watercolour and gouache ....March 07

I keep many of my plein air studies in gouache, little paintings and swatches of colour mixes mounted in spiral bound sketch books. Here is one from a couple of years ago.....

LITTLE GEMS 15

This painting is for my on-line artist friend Jala Pfaff who paints wonderful contemporary abstract paintings. I thought this might cheer her up a little as she has been feeling a little blue lately. Jala......hope you like it…..and that it will inspire you to fly on higher ground.

©Maggie Latham 2009

8x12 inch pure gouache on gessoed watercolour paper....

Going further with blending gouache wet in wet this one is on 300lb hot pressed watercolour paper that had one layer of Colourfix pastel primer in white. Using only my beat up I inch gesso brush and lots of gouache this was painted all in one pass while everything was still wet. Some interesting effects can be achieved on this type of slightly gritty surface. I opted not to put any suggestions of boats in, as I liked it as a minimal seascape.

These get quite messy with lots of pigment and water…so I thought I would show the back too …........sometimes the backs look better than the painting (lol)…

Maggie

WET IN WET GOUACHE

© Maggie Latham 2009

The finished painting 8x12 inches on 300lb hot pressed paper...

I've been experimenting recently with blending wet in wet using gouache. It is a little more difficult than with watercolour as the consistency of gouache runs and blends at a different pace. You also have to try to complete the sky and foreground in ‘one pass’ in the initial wet in wet blend, as it is extremely difficult to overlay more washes over a dried pigmented gouache wash. In watercolour it is no problem…. simply re-wet the paper and lay down another glaze or wash…but gouache lifts and does unsightly things when disturbed by subsequent layers of wash.

Unlike wet in wet techniques in watercolour where I wet the entire piece of paper first, with this painting I used dry paper, but used enough water and pigment on my brush and palette to flow easily around the entire sheet of paper.

The demo below is on 300lb hot pressed watercolour paper (Saunders Waterford) quarter sheet size Colours used: Neutral Tint (W&N tube watercolour) …and in gouache: Naples Yellow, Cad Yellow and Permanent White. Most of my colour mixing is done on the paper wet in wet, a little on my palette. The finished painting has been cropped down to 8x12 inches. I like to work larger and crop down for maximum compositional impact (especially on these minimal composition paintings which are all about atmosphere, sky and sea) ....as the size of the paper allows for using larger brushes, which leads to nicer passages of colour and blending.

Moving the paper allows pigment and water to flow and blend easily....here is the first passages of pigment and water flowing on the paper surface...and I am holding the paper up-side down and begining to blend the sky colours of Neutral Tint and White.

More of the first passages of Neutral Tint watercolour blending on the paper surface.... establishing the horizon line and middle ground...

By keeping the paper moving....moving and stopping....moving and turning....goauche pigment 'makes it's own journey' on the paper surface, creating wonderful blended passages. With this painting I kept pigment and water blending for about 15 mins, adding a little more colour here and there and keeping everything wet. To stop blending you simply have to lay your paper flat on a table top. It's easy to create unsightly 'back runs' coming in from the sides of the paper (from picking up wet wash and pigment which runs off onto your work surface)....so I mop up with a paper towel regularly.

Drying out....just as in watercolour it will dry lighter in value than when wet. With 300lb paper I leave it overnight to dry out before adding the final touches.

Using a sample mat/mount at this stage is a crucial part of my painting process and helps to

determine where the composition should be cropped or tweaked.....

Cropping down for maximum compositional effect...

I added several small suggestions for boats and a little more dry brush colour in the foreground...Here is the finished painting in a sample mount on my worktable. the finished scanned painting is above at the top of this post.

Maggie

LITTLE GEMS 14

©Maggie Latham 2009

5x7 inch... gouache on paper. WIdemouth Bay in Cornwall is one of my favourite coastal areas to paint, and a great surfing beach...this one is painted from memory, but i go there regularly to paint 'en plein air'...