Sunday, August 6, 2017

Stress relief

New class. Her name is Suzanne.
I have been following a south Florida artist, Christy Sobolewski, off and on for the past few years. Her videos are incredible. She talks while she paints, sometimes about the work she is creating, sometimes about things going on in her life, politics, diseases, etc. She does have an annual class, online, that was called Obsessions and is now something with inspiration in the title. I can't keep up. I'm lucky I know my name because senior moments are becoming plentiful.....Anyhow, her professional brand is called "Gulfsprite", so if you are interested, please google. I believe the latest is gulfsprite.com/learn.

With the Obsessions class, you pay by year or by month. I was late to the game this year, and paid for July and August because she is doing techniques that interest me. July was using watercolor for faces. August is using Neocolor II and gouache. I have a set of 30 Neocolor II crayons, and wanted ideas on how to use them effectively. Never tried gouache, so after watching part of the first video this month, used a coupon to buy a student grade set of Reeve's gouache at Michael's.

Oh. My. I now have a new addiction. The above journal page was drawn with cheap mechanical pencil from Dollar Tree. I then used the Neocolor II crayons to put down about 50% of the hair, almost all of the top, and the under shading of the face. Then, following Christy's example in the video, started layering gouache. I LOVE THIS PAINT! And this is the cheap stuff. It dries matte, for one thing, but once dry it can still be manipulated. So if, like me, you have to get up to let the dogs out so they can then come back in in exactly 3 minutes, you can still go back to the part you were working on and move the paint. Say what????

If you add a lot of water to gouache, it is semi opaque. If you don't add hardly any water, just enough to move the paint, the colors are bright, vibrant and gorgeous, opaque. AND THIS IS THE CHEAP STUFF!!!

I was so excited, I did a second girl last night sitting on the bed while the dogs watched a rerun of Castle. Haven't applied the gouache yet, but did the under coat with Neocolor II. Can't wait to get in the studio this morning.
Linda

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