Friday, September 13, 2024

Alan Summer 12



 Another attempt at gouache resist using a different technique. 

First I painted a simple still life. I liked it except for the bad bananas 



Then I put on a coat of white gouache being careful to leave space for the ink. 


Then I put a thin layer of india ink ovet the entire thing. 


Then I washed off the ink and gouache in the sink gently brushing. I might have taken off too much. The white gouache mixes with the watercolor and kind of stabilizes it and makes it more opaque. 


For the last step, I increase some values and add some detail. 


Here’s the one that starts out with the painted gouache still life and puts the india ink on top of that. It looks kinds like a woodcut.


I learned a lot from this technique but it’s really time consuming (a lot of waiting for things to dry) and when you make a mistake with the ink there’s not a lot you can do about it. I would do it again while I was painting other things or as a way to change a painting I don’t like. 

6 comments:

  1. ekoSeptember 14, 2024 at 1:04 PM

    Well, I must say I Iike the results, especially at the stage where you just washed off the ink. It seems vibrant enough that you might not even have to go in with the paint again. However...there are so many steps! And I don't have that much white gouache! On the other hand, if I had more white gouache, I might try it, as I do like the result. I just may have to stock up on white gouache and try this again.

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    1. AlanSeptember 14, 2024 at 2:12 PM

      I bought a little pour pouch for $10 that has quite a bit of paint in it. It’ll probably last me through as many of these as I’ll ever do. I might use it to change a landscape painting that I did not like.

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  2. sjdSeptember 15, 2024 at 8:31 AM

    My fav is the second one from the bottom, where you’ve increased the values and added details, but I’m wondering if you can’t get the same effect using pen and ink, or just a bit of India ink in places. It was a nice still life to start out with, however, hardly simple! That’s a lot of fruit! But I really like the abstraction of the background and foreground, those 3 blocks of color.

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    1. AlanSeptember 15, 2024 at 12:38 PM

      I wondered the same thing. After all the work and time spent, 5 minutes with pen and ink would do the same thing. But there’s something about the gouache/watercolor combo that makes it interesting along with the random points of ink.

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  3. paoSeptember 16, 2024 at 7:27 AM

    Wow. Your end result looks great, the 2nd from the end. And what a process. Like stain glass making? in terms of a long process in the making of a piece. I wonder how you'd like doing woodcut prints?

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  4. Uncle KenSeptember 20, 2024 at 6:00 AM

    I still like the original, I favor the aethereal.

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