THE GOODNESS OF GOUACHE!

When I began my art journey 15 years ago, I ordered art books and researched everything I could about water mediums. Instinctively I knew that oils—perhaps the most classic of all paints—were off limits to me, given my asthma and some nebulous irreversible lung disease which is currently non-threatening.

Although I love the transparent quality of watercolor paint, I have always been inspired to add dimension and texture to my work. From the start, I attempted to build texture with watercolors, achieving some vibrant depths of color. But the rough and rugged visuals I was after were beyond my reach until, via the art books, I discovered gouache.

Gouache can be thinned with water to achieve some degree of transparency. But straight from the tube, gouache quickly provides layers of impasto—almost simulating the appearance of oils. Unlike watercolors, gouache can be layered light over dark. In the above painting done with gouache on a gallery wrap canvas panel, you can see that I started with a heavy layer of blues and greens, and then painted the vase, flowers, etc.

Like watercolors (but unlike acrylics) gouache can be scrubbed away. So I always spray the canvas renderings with an acrylic fixative. The fixative is available in matt and gloss; I prefer the less popular but more glitzy look of gloss. Of course no fixative is needed for paintings on watercolor paper (I use 140# or heavier) framed behind glass.

In the early years of artmaking, I used gouache sparingly—mainly to add touches of white or to camouflage a boo-boo. Then gradually I began to use more and more blotches of color, until now when I have a drawer packed with every possible color of Da Vinci’s 37ml professional gouache. On some occasions, as in the above painting, I use gouache exclusively.

Unlike acrylics which are death to brushes, gouache is kind to the watercolor brushes. When well care for, washed after every using and always positioned to dry “brush up”, the brushes may last forever. I have had most of my brushes for years, starting with a few excellent ones and building a collection.

And, gouache paint is amazingly inexpensive. It’s a win/win deal. 🙂 Gouache is good!

Margaret L. Been — February 4th, 2021

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The Paint is Still Flowing

I came up with another excuse for putting off blogging:  my mouse died.  After countless years with my pet mouse, he (it) bit the dust.  I simply cannot get the hang of keyboarding with my pinkie.  But now I have a brand new purple mouse from Office Max, and I’m eager to blog.  I LOVE the color purple!

Obviously, the long skinny panel above wouldn’t fit into my phone camera without showing the surround of our front door and a rug.  But you get the idea that by February in Wisconsin those of us who do not care to ski, skate, or roll in snow are dreaming—even pining—for spring.  Nowhere does this longing express itself more blatantly than in our home.  Flowers are blooming all over the place!

This gallery wrap canvas experienced many mutations.  The pink at the top began as foxgloves, those deadly but lovely bell-shaped flowers that always remind me of Beatrix Potter’s foolish duck who laid her eggs under the “protection” of the Foxy Gentleman who lounged among the foxgloves.

My foxgloves were rather ugly, so I tried to morph them into tulips.  The tulips were equally unpleasant, so I dabbed away—adding gouache—until the tulips became those fragrant blossoms that most anyone can render convincingly:  lilacs.

Yes, May!!!  Next down the line were purple irides (otherwise known as irises), something I can normally manage to paint because of their ruffles.  Then more lilacs or maybe pink irides, and finally my beloved mertensia—Virginia bluebells.

A lot of gouache was layered onto this watercolor flower arrangement, giving the panel a nice textured effect.  I painted the sides with acrylic, because when I spray the finished panel with an acrylic fixative for preservation it is easy to cover the flat surface—but the sides are harder to spray.  I want to make sure my gallery wrap panels will last, at least for a few decades and perhaps longer.

In a little over two weeks, daylight saving begins.  Hurray!  And it’s already spring within the walls of our home!  🙂

Margaret L. Been — 2/23/18

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No Excuses!

Six months since my last entry.  I always taught our 6 children that they should never feel pressured to make excuses.  Reasons, okay, but excuses are lame.  Just admit, “I didn’t do it, make it, remember it, whatever.”

My only reason for not sitting down to my computer would be a feeble excuse:  I don’t like to have to stay indoors in the summer.  Well that doesn’t fly:  1) I could take my laptop outdoors; 2) I could blog on my I-pad; 3) Even in the summer there is some indoor weather in Wisconsin; and 4) Summer of 2017 is long gone.

All such flim-flam aside, here I am:  getting ready to celebrate the miraculous birth of our Lord with a wonderful big family.  (There are momentarily 53 of us, and number 54 is due today to come out, to meet the tribe.  She is our 19th great-grandchild, already named as of her 1st ultra-sound—“Margaret Rose” after her 2 paternal great-grandmas, of them being “moi”.  How wonderful is THAT!)

And here is some art, “Autumn Garden at Night”.  ⇑  The piece is gouache on a gallerywrap canvas, and it comes with poignant memories.  Beginning last March, our precious Pembroke Welsh Corgi, Dylan, started to decline.  He need to be taken out many times in a 24 hour period, so—like Robert Frost—I became very “acquainted with the night”.

March, April, and May nights were blustery, damp, and cold—but summer and early autumn were lovely.  Dylan and I, attached at the hip since Joe and I brought him home from a farm in Iowa in early 2004, had countless precious nocturnal jaunts in our quiet courtyard lit by the patio light and the rosy solar lights in my gardens.  Hence the above rendering.

Our Denver son, Karl, would like this painting and it will be his as soon as I find a way to get it to him, hopefully barring UPS or Priority Mail.  But I am happy to have the picture in my computer, and on prints which I can share.  Dylan died peacefully in my arms on October 16th.  I think he had that famous corgi smile on his face right up to his last sigh.

Meanwhile, I worship a Living Savior and praise Him for LIFE—for people to love and “all creatures great and small”.  May God bless you and your families with a beautiful holiday season—wherever, and whomever you are.

Margaret L. Been — 12/18/17

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The Look

It’s possible that many of you readers are not ancient enough to remember the 1930s and 40s Big Band leader, Glenn Miller. His band was known for its one-of-a-kind sound, explained by the following quote from Wikipedia:

“Miller . . . realized that he needed to develop a unique sound, and decided to make the clarinet play a melodic line with a tenor saxophone holding the same note, while three other saxophones harmonized within a single octave.”

This technique worked beautifully, and Glenn Miller’s music contrasted with other Big Band era “greats”, due to its quality which I can best describe as “mellow”.  And I was there, growing up with the Saturday Night Hit Parade during WWII.

Unfortunately, Miller and the plane he was flying in that war were lost over the English Channel in 1944.  But his smooth melodies live on.  In 1954, a film was released of Glenn Miller’s life, THE GLENN MILLER STORY starring Jimmy Stewart in the lead role.

What in the world does a Big Band sound have to do with art?  Not much, except that I have been thinking of Glenn Miller a lot lately.  I recall the film, and can still hear Stewart alias Miller saying:  “I have got to find ‘the sound’!”   Evidently Miller experienced the sound in his head before he realized how to create it.  Likewise, regarding my art I have been visualizing and saying, “I have got to find ‘the look‘!”

The look I’ve envisioned is textured, rich in color nuances, and layered to resemble an oil painting without the oils.  Oils would not make my lungs happy.  Water soluble oils?  I have tried those, with no success.  As with traditional oil paints, the water soluble oils take a long time to dry.  I simply do not have space in my studio to begin new paintings while works in progress to sit around forever  and a day drying.

Acrylics?  Call it irrational, and I guess it is.  But, I JUST DO NOT LIKE ACRYLICS.  They are fine in the hands of other artists, but my hands can’t handle them.  And open medium notwithstanding, the acrylics dry too fast?

So what is JUST RIGHT?  What can achieve the look with none of the above?  Of course you know from my past entries, it’s GOUACHE!  But gouache on watercolor paper has limits, texture-wise.  My Glenn Miller epiphany?  Gouache on Gallerywrap Canvas Panels.

I begin by generously covering the panel with gesso, streaking the brush in whatever direction suits me, to create lumps, ridges, and other textural marks.  That’s the foundation for “the look”.  Then, when the gesso is dry I apply a thin wash of watercolor in various shades which I want to feature in the finished picture.

When the watercolor wash is completely dry, I take my time with the gouache and I may spend a week on one painting.  Gone are the days when I thought I had to bang out several works in a week.  My walls and shelves are loaded with my art, and I can afford to slow down—savoring the pleasure of each stage, analyzing carefully after the initial color fling, and working deliberately to improve each section of the painting.  I purposefully leave dabs and ridges of gouache to build up in areas while smoothing out other parts of the painting.  I strive for polishing detail on some of the canvas while leaving other parts vague and blurry.  This augments the look I desire to achieve.

Now maybe you are saying, “Yes, but . . . .”  And you would be right, considering Gallerywrap Canvas Panels are normally to be left unframed.  Gouache is a rather moisture-vulnerable medium to hang in the open air, especially in Wisconsin’s “good old summertime”!  However, a thorough spray job with an acrylic fixative takes care of the “but”.  No longer vulnerable, my sprayed gouache panels are sealed—if not forever, at least for a very long time and certainly a lot longer than I will be around.

I know that touching art is a huge NO-NO!  I would never do that in a gallery, museum, someone else’s home, or any other place featuring art.  But I can’t resist occasionally touching my sprayed panels, with the back of my hand of course—so that no fingerprints will be left behind.  Along with the look, I enjoy the feel!

Margaret L. Been — September 10, 2016

Note:  My photography is limited in its representation of art.  First I took the picture with my I-pad and emailed it to myself.  The colors were nothing like the original; only the primaries showed, with no innuendoes of color.  Then I tried my I-phone, and that was no better.  Finally I got out my digital camera, and the above was the best I could manage—better than the pad and phone, but still lacking in the multitude of subtle shades on the painting where colors phase into their neighbors. 

Since the panel is a vertical hanging rectangle, I couldn’t include the whole job in the photo without the wall showing on each side of the painting.  And texture shows up best in real life as well.  If you are in the neighborhood, you are welcome to drop in and see for yourself.    🙂 

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