continued gouache studies.
highly inaccurate map. my departure date grows near!
still adding days to my travel journal. i’m too impatient to plan better or use pencil and a ruler. so wackadoodle is what i usually end up with. works for me!
i got a $3 palette to house my gouache. alice wrote to tell me of a way to keep the gouache from crumbling. i am trying it this week. will report back my findings. i should have purchased more carefully. i ended up with 5 silly colors i didn’t need and can make with some of my other primaries. all the mixes below the black boxes were made without the x’ed out colors.
experimenting with mixing is a very worthwhile learning opportunity. and boy is it ever fun to make those little color swatches!
the more water you add the less opaque the gouaches become. i’ll still bring my watercolors to amsterdam though since i prefer their brilliance to watered down gouache. 2 small travel palettes.
did i already mention my new fixation with wallander – the swedish crime drama? geraldine left a comment to tell me about it. i finished the kenneth branaugh bbc version. so so good and now i’m on the subtitled series. the swedish countryside is calling to me very loudly. geraldine also recommended the book she’s reading which i can’t wait to start. but i’m in the thick of those despicable nazi thugs crushing the jews in vienna, laying ruin to the glorious city, and stealing all of their art. it’s a real-life page turner. you want everyone to escape, but you know they won’t. you want to tell them, “get out now! this won’t blow over like you think it will. leave tonight!” but you can’t. they can’t hear you. you wish they could.
Love your knee illustration! Glad it is better for your awesome trip coming up. great journal!! I love that
shirley if anyone could tell you it would be roz stendhal she is so knowledgable about watercolor and gouache.
i have concluded from my preliminary experiments that i will use fresh whenever possible. im mostly unsatisfied with what i did today – will report on that soon – they lose some of their opacity and matte finish. i do not like or want any sheen whatsoever. so i am going with my original instinct which i will explain fully v. soon
Please tell us how to keep gouache from crumbling….
It keeps popping out of my palette holes.
Tried Wallander but it didn’t stick. Don’t know why. Sometimes things are just that way, but I try to go back and try again, and sometimes they do. I am totally obsessed with Revenge. Not the personal kind, but the series. I usually don’t like regular TV series, but this is like Dynasty on crack. Sure, everyone always looks gorgeous, drives exotic cars, live in the Hamptons, but the cliffhanger script keeps me staying up till midnight to watch just one more. I am copying you again and ordered some goulash.
RE: reading, How about LADY IN GOLD? I just got it from our library, do you like it? I rarely read non-fiction….but I am mystified about the artist & his model. Did you place THE BONES OF PARIS on your list? It just came out through I-Tunes, it takes place in Paris, 1929, right before the stock market crash.
RE:GOUACHE lots of great artists use this…. I like these two illustrators’ & their blogs: Holly Ward Bimbo, her website: gollybard.blogspot.com from Northern VA and Geninne’s Art Blog from Mexico. Both are wonderful illustrators of nature and life outdoors using gouache.
What is this type of watercolor? I’d love to hear your input….many thanks, Holly
Hmmmmmmm. I think somebody has been binge watching! So funny, too, because how could you not? The Swedish Wallander was, hands-down, my favorite. I think you guys got me on a bookish streak. On Jo Nesbo, last week I finished “Phantom” and found it to be a great read. Feeling greedy now, having finished 3 great books in a row. Good book on the nightstand is better that money in the bank, me thinks.
Guilty pleasures!!! Yes, the Swedish Wallander was just the best! Great stories! I watched them twice!! O.K. obsessive behavior, but so what! Enjoy them. Also, love, love, love, Vera on Netflix. Great mysteries, odd old gal detective! Wonderful stuff! AND, as always, enjoying you enjoying yourself!
Best to you,
Nancy
We loved the Kenneth Brannagh Wallander series and I got all giddy when I read in your comments about there being a Swedish series. We’re devouring it – I think we’re on episode 7, The Priest? We’re having a majorly annoying time streaming on Netflix though, it keeps stopping … over and over. ARGH. Are you having difficulty too?
My maternal granddaddy’s family were Swedish and I hope to get there one day and see where they came from …
Love your journal, enjoying watching it grow.
I came from Hennings novels to the morose but mesmerizing Wallandar. Then the BBC’s with Branagh, then to the Swedish
Wallandar (even darker and more brooding). On to Stig Larsson and Jo Nesbo. Some people might look at that journey and
Suggest antidepressants. Strangely, while dark I don’t find these writers or characters depressing at all. I am drawn and relate
To them because life “in their shoes” is more real and less sensational. The characters are thoughtful, caring and vulnerable
In a way that I relate to. Their aloofness is not smug but the product of solitary scrutiny. I also find that the characters are
Sometimes alone but not lonely. Okay Mary Ann, I’ve gone off the edge of the literary curve.
I look forward to sharing your Amsterdam journey, you always uncover the core of the cities you visit. am recovering from
A serious OD of gouache.
That Knee looks wrong…=)
Lived here since 1986 (moved from Northern Norway to southern Sweden) and I have grown really fond of the woods and lakes, You are so welcome MAM IF you ever come. Amsterdam journal looks great, I dream of what its going to look like filled with all the “goodies” you will find when there. (obs there are more than one series of wallander) good luck
love your amsterdam journal. it’s going to be a great trip. I love amsterdam
wallander – read the books too. they are great. The swedish countryside is so so beautiful and close to me you know 😉
We have a history of crime novels, good ones. Tell me when you need a new one, I will suggest some good ones to you. But as Mr Mankell is very productive you will be busy with his books for a while. I’m waiting to have you here in Sweden so please consider it.
Hmmm? Are there TWO kinds of GOUACHE?! One that re-wets and one that is not? It DID seem like the Acryla gouache was more like an acrylic, but love the matte opaque finish!! Was just wondering. Also read where boiled water or a coat of it over the gouache works to bind it together….but to do it sooner than later….can you mix watercolor and gouache? Love your knee illustration! Glad it is better for your awesome trip coming up. great journal!! I love that it is NOT perfect…which paralyzes creativity for me!
First I watched the british version, then the girl with the dragon tattoo, and the last couple days, Swedish Wallander. I spent a year in Orebro in Sweden. Oh, I do miss it. I love the different emphasis in plot and style. So so just right. The British version kept offering people “tea or coffee” – when of course it’s just coffee all the time. So funny. I’ve been posting my portrait sketches for the 29faces challenge using the wonderful faces from the series. Deep lines, wobbly heads, dark brooding eyes. Oh, and I find the holbein hard to rewet. Or it’s old. Hard to know. Just saying, cuz I can’t mention anything when I have my cat suit on in the corner.
sheila my knee is practically back to normal! thank goodness. it goes out occasionally and causes delays but after a week is usually back up and operating at top speed. since amsterdam is flat i anticipate no probs. going to go knock on wood now.
Nix on the bad knee! 🙁 bad timing. Love your pages though!
Xoxo,
Sheila
Journal is awesome and then some. I personally like wackadoodle; so it all looks good from my perspective. I’m smiling at the thought of ‘silly’ colors, well it may be maybe so, but every now and again having a few silly colors sneak into your shopping cart is bound to happen to you Mary Ann. Colors just sort of find you whether or not they are needed…in thier little voices they whisper ‘oh yoooooouuu hoooooooo pick me, pick me’ and they keep it up until you relent so it’s not your fault that you got them, it’s the colors fault for being insistent in the moment.