I only brought a small watercolor kit with me to Australia, and I’ve been missing working more thickly with paint. (I miss my oils, but they are packed away in our storage unit in Philly.) So I got a few tubes of gouache paint since it doesn’t require any specific mediums and is very immediate. It’s been a long long time since I used gouache, so on Saturday I played around with a few colors to see how the paint behaves. Exciting stuff. I can use it almost as transparently as watercolor, build up quasi opaque layers, use it thickly (but not too much or it risks cracking), subsequent layers of paint can “pick up” color below (this can be a disadvantage too), and colors can run and bleed similarly to watercolor. Since I was just tooling around on a piece of paper, I wasn’t expecting to make anything in particular, and the color reflected this; it was pretty awful! On Sunday, I decided I’d try to make something of it though. Using the paint’s opaque qualities to work additively I covered up and unified some the marks. I folded and cut it into a book — why not? — and then worked on each page, sometimes moving back and forth between pages. I finished with some ink drawing as well. While the palette is a little odd for me, I think the final piece is kind of interesting, even if just as an experiment! Here it is, page by page:
Category: making stuff
Project 23
This week’s 10 cranes… The current crane tally is 37.
Project 22
Finally had the chance to put something a little more substantial together today. I’ve had this in my head for some years now, but didn’t know how to get it down. It’s 20cm square. Agnes Martin’s work means a lot to me, and I finally feel like her work has filtered through me in this piece.
Project 21
Project 20
Project 18
Today’s enso. I’m starting to vary the red line a bit more here.
Project 17
Today’s enso.
Project 16
I didn’t get a chance to draw on Saturday, so I made 2 ensos on Sunday. This is one of them.
Project 15
Tonight I drew as Tim changed Noah and played with him. I like the drawings on this page in particular, especially the one at the bottom.
Project 14
Today’s enso.