During the weekend 16.8.-17.8. we worked mainly with gouache and did some color blending practices and other assignments.

Above painting was an assignment to paint a hand holding some item (I picked a brush, not so surprisingly). The main point was to be able to blend a convincing skin color.  I started of a bit too yellow but lightened it with new layers. I anyway started of with mid tone and then started lightening, as there wasn’t that much shadows and darker areas to make in my pose (just very subtle variations in skin).

The second painting was to study an object, color, light and shadows. There was not that strong light sources to cast shadows but anyway the tin object nicely reflected to the desk.

In this I used some left over quality water color paper piece (you can lightly see ‘Canson’ on the right side of the paper). The paper had nice texture which I could use in the coloring (using slightly drier brush over the dry surface).

The third task, which I picked from multiple different options, was to paint some detail, a very close view of three different surfaces meeting. I went off for a little walk and chose a nice blue windowsill. A close view facing downwards and showing also some of the concrete (?) tiling and the reflections in the window.

We also had some discussions on gouache and one was has anyone actually seen any art in galleries made in gouache. I actually had wondered on this also earlier, since I have been doing now more or less gouache or water color pieces. BUT, I did see some work during Summer, both cases in Mänttä Serlachius museum. There was one wall with Olga Gummerus-Ehrströms work made in gouache and I had not realized earlier that Albert Edelfelt’s massive ‘Finnish Soldiers in The War of 1808-1809′ (Porilaisten marssi) is actually a gouache work on paper (it was displayed in the classics of the museum). I’ve felt gouache works are more manageable with smaller paper, but apparently that is just a limit in my head.

But back to the course days. Before all the object studies, the first day actually started with blending practices, e.g. using two different colors and trying out mixing white into the colors. In some practices color studies were also considered, picking the opposite colors for the studies. Main point was to get acquainted with gouache.

Left side colors as is from tube, right side white added and blended to middle.

tape ripped the paper off quite bad in this one, I think I’ve faced that painful fact also earlier, so should consider when ever taping this paper to board or otherwise . I should try at home how warming the tape helps.

Paper: Daler Rowney, Smooth Heavyweight (A4, 220g).

Additional blending practices, using three colors with some patterns/stripes, second also with three colors (mixed orange) and last with green blended to white.

Here I just played with the opposite colors, making own patches, blending them to each other and also making a color mix of the two. (and adding some patterns as well).

Here I ripped the paper a bit as well, but usually tape gets off this specific paper quite ok. Now there was just a bit of an additional challenge to rip off tape from the sections.

Paper: Claire Fontaine, Paint On Gris (A4, 250g)