Gouache (Ga-wash!)

GOUACHE

I recently taught a class to a group of Artists down here in Ajo.  It was a fun 2 hr. class in painting with India Ink and Gouache.  Gouache is like an opaque watercolor but when it dries it has a somewhat velvety finish. In an ink and gouache resist painting, you draw out your subject on watercolor paper, then paint just inside the lines with the Gouache.  (You let your pencil lines show.)  When the gouache is dry (hairdryer!) you cover the whole picture with Black India Ink and then cross your fingers. When that step is dry you wash the ink off under gently running water.  I just use my fingers (with latex glove on) to help it along. This is where you hold your breath a little because you are never quite sure how the painting will wind up. Where there was gouache it will have resisted the black ink and stained the paper.  Some of the gouache will wash off too and that's o.k. because the color is now stained into the paper. Where there was no gouache (or in some cases it just wasn't thick enough to resist the ink) the black ink will show through.  The finished pieces usually have a fun, somewhat abstract feel.

You can easily see, especially on the cactus piece, where there was no gouache, or where I didn't have it quite thick enough.

Just in case you were wondering, no serious art here!

My favorite of the three

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Just a couple of photographs I took that I thought I'd share . . .

The desert is such a fascinating place.  

A restaurant plantscape

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Clouds of the Day . . .

I actually can see a dogs face (barely!) in the cloud in the upper left hand corner, but I just happen to like this photo because of how the grasses stand out against the sky.  It's those simple things.

Charleen