NATURE JOURNAL This is NOT a tutorial on how to paint with gouache in your nature journal!

 

More Possum Patty's Nature Journaling:

NATURE JOURNAL Countdown 13 Days to the Autumnal Equinox! Early Fall Colors along the Lane

 

More Possum Patty's Nature Journaling:

Nature Journaling at the North Museum October 20, 2018

Your Nature Journal can be purely scientific or it can be whimsical. My journals are usually a mix of both facts and fantasy!

It was Spooky Science Day at the museum. We drew the Jumping Spider, Salticus scenicus. Below the sketch I added some facts: it has broad horizontal bands across its abdomen, its fangs are used to stab its prey and inject it with venom, and its basic teeth crunch the prey when eating. 

Spiders need someone to scare even if it is only an old fashioned Pumpkin Head Man.

Ink and watercolor in my Jane Davenport Canvas Journal.

"... as long as I have a brush in front of me, I'm all right." Maud Lewis

Maud Lewis was a famous folk artist who lived with crippling disease in a tiny humble home in Nova Scotia, Canada. I am very inspired by her attitude in life, her ability to focus on her creativity and not her disability, and her primitive style.

Her paintings and her tiny house (she covered the walls, windows, doors, shelves, and just about everything with pictures) can be seen in the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. https://www.artgalleryofnovascotia.ca/

Books, plays, and films about her life have been produced. I watched Maudie  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maudie_(film) . Above is one of her original cat paintings which prompted me to try her style and do one of my own.

Happy Spring Kitties. 

Gouache in my Strathmore 500 Series Mixed Media Journal.

Mixed Media Fall Bouquet - The last of the garden flowers.

Watercolors, gouache, and ink to capture the last of the garden flowers.

Art Process:

I pulled the large watercolor palette out of the closet for this page. First layer of color.

Decided to add gouache to the background. Love this blue aqua!

I liked the background so I used more gouache on the flowers and leaves.

I also added Sakura Black Glaze Pen and Dr. Ph Martin's Bleedproof White Ink with a dippy pen to add shadows and highlights. I like the liveliness of lines!

Full journal page in Strathmore 400 Series Wirebound Watercolor Journal.

#SBS #WatercolorRules Week 3 Mixing Watercolor & Gouache

Watercolor Rules!

Sketchbook Skool Klass

Week 3 with August Wren

My process started with a #10 Round Watercolor Brush.

Wet variegated watercolor wash: Cadmium Red, Yellow, and Orange; Burnt Sienna, Raw Sienna, Mineral Violet, and Indian Yellow.

After the wash dried, I doodled with Noodler's Bulletproof Black ink and dip pen.

Pumpkin doodle from the imagination.

Next, I selected a limited palette of gouache: Olive Green, Raw Sienna, Flesh Tint, Indian Yellow, Quinacridone Violet, Coral, Titanium White.

Gouache over watercolor:

Colored pencil palette: Derwent Coloursoft Pencils - White, Blue C330, Deep Cadmium C040. Prismacolor Pencils - Indigo Blue, Purple, Olive Green, Dark Umber 756, Scarlet Red.

Love to scribble!

Close up.

More black ink and a touch of Dr. Ph Martin's Bleedproof white ink.

September 6, 2018 What's on my mind? Stormy Florence...

What's on my mind?

Stormy Florence blossoms as she dances across the Atlantic.

Full Spread. Watercolors and Sakura Glaze pen with Schmineke Pale Gold dry gouache in my Jane Davenport Canvas Journal.

#30Pages30Days Page 16 March 16 Sktchy Challenge The Making of The Gnome Baby

Margaret tightly gripped the sturdy blue pole as Muriel glanced out from under the old worn crazy quilt. That night several inches of newly fallen snow covered the ground, but the fresh young leaves of the daffodil that had sprung up in the warmth of the February sun, were snug in the blanket shelter. It was important to the gnomes to protect the secret hidden in the tender bulb just inches below them in the fertile soil.

#30Pages30Days Page 16 March 16

Sktchy Challenge: Children's story character and some text.

Gouache in Jane Davenport Canvas Journal. 

During the video about the making of The Gnome Baby, I explain how the baby got into the daffodil bulb. Watch here!

#30Pages30Days Page 13 March 13 Gnomes in the Snow

Gnomes in the Snow

I've been nature journaling for about 10 years, and it never ceases to amaze me what you learn if you just sit quietly and observe...

Gouache in Jane Davenport Canvas Journal.

#30Pages30Days

Page 13  March 13 

Narrated art process video:

The March Snow Gnomes

What secret lies beneath the snow? 

The Wise Old Possum Woman

#30Pages30Days Page 15 March 15 Sktchy Challenge Art and Oatmeal: Tiger Lilies

The antidote to all of the fussy-fussy gouache painting that I have been doing for the past few days! 

#30Pages30Days Page 15 March 15

Art and Oatmeal: Tiger Lilies

Just took the gouache paint and slapped that puppy all over the page. Let my brush dance freely from background to flower, yellow to orange, trying not to stay too long in any one spot.

Afterwards, I used a Pentel brush pen to doodle on the bloom. 

And then I attacked the bottom half of the next page which was never finished. These are lily stems, not corn stalks! All this just to get this Strathmore 500 Series Mixed Media Journal #10 finished! Well, still one more page to tidy up. 

You can watch the process here!

#30Pages30Days Page 14 March 14 Art and Oatmeal: Carol's Pitcher Plant

#30Pages30Days Page 14 March 14

Sktchy Challenge

Art and Oatmeal: Carol's Pitcher Plant

Took this picture of Carol's pitcher plant a few weeks ago. I love the form and colors on this bog plant!

I had some gouache paint out on a palette from working on Roz Stendahl's challenge of switching up an approach or medium and sticking to it for 3 days. I decided to use some of the paint this morning during Art and Oatmeal.

Experimented with putting the gouache over the black gesso which was on the first page in my Strathmore 500 Series Mixed Media Journal #10. 

Want to watch me play with the gouache (and eat oatmeal)? Watch here!

#30Pages30Days Page 12 March 12: How to Sketch the Perfect Roof Line

#30Pages30Days Page 12 March 12

This is a "prompt mash-up." Roz's challenge (Day 10) was to pick one approach or medium and use it for 3 days. Yesterday I painted Amelia Sweetheart's mouth with gouache, so I worked with gouache again today. 

On Day 4 when I went to the park to nature journal, I arrived early to sketch the mansion to play "catch up" for Anita Davies' challenge on Day 3 to go on location to sketch a building because on that day I went outside and painted crocus.

The subject that I sketch or paint the least is buildings! It was cold so I sat in the car. The only view of the mansion was through the trees. I have a sketch series called "trees in parking lots while waiting for appointments". I tried to boost my confidence by telling myself that this will be same only there will be some shapes behind the trees!

I followed Anita Davies tip of learning to break the structure down into shapes and observing their relation to one another. The mansion is big on shapes! Many pointed roof lines, round turrets, stucco and wood, stones, etc.

I completed a quick ink sketch on location. Added Anita's tip to the page when I got back home. I didn't paint it until today. I put the trees in because I figured that if I didn't like the way the building came out, I could hide it with a forest! But after painting the mansion, I decided to not paint the trees and just left them inky. I made a command design decision! Anyway time was up. And then some. 30 minutes or less! 

I want to share my secret weapon that I used to get the correct roof angles, so I recorded this just for you!

#30Pages30Days Sktchy Challenge Page 10 March 10 Draw directly with ink.

#30Pages30Days 

Page 10 March 10
Amelia Sweetheart

"A portrait is a painting in which something is wrong with the mouth." John Singer Sargent  But.....

"You can paint over the black ink lines with gouache!" Roz Stendahl  Amelia's mouth before and then after, gouache.

Sktchy Challenge to draw directly in ink. I did. "If you go wrong - leave the line and carry on." Anita Davies I did, for a while, and then I returned to those wrong lines and painted the suckers OUT. 

Since I don't have an iPhone and therefore, don't have a Sktchy App, I sketched from this photo of my grandniece while waiting for an appointment at the doctor's office. I only had 10 or 15 minutes, and I WAS trying to observe and carefully place my lines, but the mouth and chin just got away from me.

I thought I could "fix" the problem when I added watercolor. All I could say at this point was: Egads!

But with patience and gouache... I got a result that I could be happy with. Ink, watercolor, and gouache in my Jane Davenport Canvas Journal.

Watch the process!