Pastels and Watercolors (and a few other art media)

[waday]

I love it! The shapes of the cracked edges are great!

I like the cross hatch shading, too. That's a cool technique that seems like it would be time consuming, but the effect is always so good.

Keep 'em coming!

Thank you! My shading is quite haphazard. I actually need to take more time to do it more carefully and plan it out better!

 

[limr]

I am nowhere near the level of y'all and have a long way to go (so feel free to school me! ), but I've been starting to learn how to use gouache paints and did a few tutorials. I'm working on learning how to use it more diluted like watercolors, and also how it behaves when it's thicker and behaves more like acrylics.

Focusing more on the layering, texture, and color/shading than on the actual composition or too many details, and there are things that I like and hate about both of these early attempts:

Thicker paints on canvas:

Thinner paint on watercolor paper:

 

[snowbear]

Welcome to the club, Leonore, and a fine job. I've never use gouache but that's why I lean to acrylics: versatility in techniques and easier to clean up than oils.

Wade - I thinks it's fine; keep them coming.

 

[terri]

Look at you go, Leo! For your first couple of attempts, I think these are both very good. I love the palette on the first one. Thicker=texture, which I am very fond of, so it's hard to go wrong there with me. They are both very pretty.

I have some gouache paints around here somewhere, and used them sparingly for some art project years ago. I liked their texture, but that's all I can recall. All I know about acrylics is that, aside from cleaning up easier because they are water-based, they dry a lot quicker, which can be a plus or a minus, depending on your desire to re-work anything.

Keep up the good work, can't wait to see more!

This is a fun thread, because everyone is working with different mediums and approaches.

 

[waday]

Red peppers by Wade, on Flickr

 

[snowbear]

@terri, there are media that will increase the working/drying time of acrylic. Another thing to consider, for those wanting to try them, is that there are both thin and heavy body paints. I believe most of the student quality are thin body, so you'd have to add one of the thickener media (like cornstarch in the gravy world) to get that thick texture that allows stippling.

 

[limr]

Look at you go, Leo! For your first couple of attempts, I think these are both very good. I love the palette on the first one. Thicker=texture, which I am very fond of, so it's hard to go wrong there with me. They are both very pretty.

I have some gouache paints around here somewhere, and used them sparingly for some art project years ago. I liked their texture, but that's all I can recall. All I know about acrylics is that, aside from cleaning up easier because they are water-based, they dry a lot quicker, which can be a plus or a minus, depending on your desire to re-work anything.

Keep up the good work, can't wait to see more!

This is a fun thread, because everyone is working with different mediums and approaches.

The first time I ever had a mind to play with paints was over 20 years ago (holy crap!) in Istanbul. I knew nothing (still don't know that much!) and got the paints that seemed less intimidating to me, and that is how I discovered gouache. Oil or watercolors were for real painters, and they made me feel like I would have to take things more seriously than I was feeling at the moment. I did not have ambitious artistic goals - I was simply restless and wanted to play with shapes and textures, and see if I could make recognizable images that captured something I was feeling or seeing. I did everything out on my balcony - lots of hot afternoons with bad Turkish vodka and my K1000 and rudimentary art supplies. I kept a few things I did from those days. Here's one I did of the view from my balcony, where I could see the top of the Bosphorus Bridge, on a night when the moon loomed large in the sky and even larger in my imagination.

And a self portrait in my the medium I was, and still am, more comfortable in You can see the bridge in the background.

 

[snowbear]

It's a good start.

 

[terri]

That painting of the bridge is AWESOME. I love the loose style. Makes me think of Marc Chagall.

When I started playing with oil pastels, I copied a lot of so-called masters. I thought then and still do think it's a great way to get familiar with a medium, as well as decide what kind of paintings are more likely to come out of you.

The Turkish vodka probably helped, too! I am also more comfortable behind a camera than in front of my little desktop easel. But it doesn't matter. What matters is just pushing past the hand-wringing and making the marks, even when I knew it was junk at the time. I pick up odd little self-helps and insights with everything I paint. My initial painting notes make me laugh now - detailed and very stream of consciousness. Lately, I just jot down if I do anything outside the norm; new paper, different brand of OP.

Like a lot of your photography, this self portrait is very dream-like. Beautiful.

 

[terri]

@waday: Wade, your peppers are so good!! Did you set them up in front of you as a still life?

MOAR!!!!!!

 

[terri]

@terri, there are media that will increase the working/drying time of acrylic. Another thing to consider, for those wanting to try them, is that there are both thin and heavy body paints. I believe most of the student quality are thin body, so you'd have to add one of the thickener media (like cornstarch in the gravy world) to get that thick texture that allows stippling.

That sounds familiar. There was something called a "drier" in photo oils, a tiny little tube of some very stiff medium. I never used that. To get the oils to flow more, it was easy to just juice your B&W print with "prepared medium," a type of prepping solution. That, I used for every print I ever colored. I preferred a longer drying time, for blending. Same concept, I'm guessing.

 

[terri]

Okay, all my prattle about copying the masters made me want to go through my files and look for something. Here, I copied "Madame Monet and son Claude," aka "Woman with a Parasol."

This is hands-down the most challenging one I ever did. But I wanted to learn about deepening colors for shadows, like that grass, and who better to copy for tricks of light than Claude Monet? She's really back-lit, too. Plus, the sky was really cool. And I liked the idea of no facial details.

I took a couple of work-in-progress pics. Just looking at them makes me tired; this was labor-intensive for me. Looks like I scribbled in the blue and used turpenoid and a brush to spread it. Likely did the same thing with the green block, too, but I don't see a pic of it.

 

[snowbear]

A beauty, terri. And I also think Leo's is damn good.

OK, I just did one. When I was in the last art class, I had to draw a single object 96 times; an exercise in creative thinking, imagination, and perspective (seeing things differently). I had a small ceramic bear I glazed, one of a pair. Unfortunately that one broke, but the sibling is here.

In Quarantine, watercolor, 5.5" x 8.5"

 

[snowbear]

My model.

 

[waday]

@waday: Wade, your peppers are so good!! Did you set them up in front of you as a still life?

MOAR!!!!!!

Thank you! Sometimes I use things in front of me, sometimes not. This time, we didn’t have any red peppers, so I had to do an image search.

This was a still life... they laid like that for a long time. My mother’s cats.

Cats by Wade, on Flickr