Coal Miner's Spring

Coal Miner's Spring is an acrylic painting on a 30" by 40" canvas. Liquitex acrylics were used throughout the piece; and a pre-stretched canvas was used.

During a pastel drawing class, I was informed that many oil painters begin a piece by placing the complimentary color on the canvas first. This is used as a base coat upon which the "natural" colors are placed. I love using this technique in pastel paintings as it seems to result in richer, more interesting colors through the final painting. My allergies prevent me from doing any oil painting so I decided to give this technique a try with acrylic.

Sketch and Comlimnetary Colors:

The first step was to do a pencil sketch on the canvas. A fairly detailed sketch was done. After the sketch, the complimentary colors were placed in large blocks on the canvas with interesting results.

"Natural Colors":

The "natural" colors were then placed over the initial layers. Care was taken not to completely cover the compliments so visual "blending" would occur. I feel that this technique worked well although the colors did not actually blend as they do with pastel and oil.

Below is a close-up of a section that shows the complimentary colors "peeking" through the natural colors. This makes the painting much more tintersting visually.

Hay Cow Resting

"Hay Cow Resting" is the first mixed media I have done combining gouache (applied in an opaque layer) and pastel. With the exception of only one color (Leaf Green which was Holbein) all of the gouache colors were Winsor and Newton Designer's Gouache. For the pastel overlay, I used Nupastels and Conte pastel pencils. The paper used was Arches cold press watercolor paper, 30" by 22".

Initial Transparent Complimentary Color Layer

I decided to try a transparent layer of gouache in colors complimentary to the colors in the photographic image. After completing this piece, I have decided to also do this technique in future paintings.

Second Thin Layer of Base Color

My next step was to apply a thin layer of the final color. The picture to the right displays part of the painting covered in the base paint and a portion still in the complimentary color wash. The picture below is the opaque layer of base color over the entire piece.

Third Opaque Layer of Gouache

A third layer of opaque gouache was applied just prior to the pastel. This layer highlights the contrast, increases pattern detail, and builds a base upon which the pastel can be applied.

I wanted to accentuate the swirls of the hay bale and the dark areas of the plants with the bright yellow sunlit tops going into the distance.

Pastel Final Layer

After having completed several paintings in thick layers of gouache, it occurred to me that pastel might work well with the paint. Some brief research told me that gouache is soft pastel in glycerin, with the chalk in the pastel making it opaque. Learning this increased my desire to try gouache and pastel together.

In the past, I have tried hard soft pastels such as Nupastel or Conte soft pastels (I do not believe these are made any more) and liked the results. The available colors are limited, and they do not blend as readily as softer brands; but they give a "graphic", sketchy quality that I like quite a bit. I have found that I can add a level of detail with these pastels that I can not do with the softer brands.

The Nupastels and the Conte pastel pencils worked beautifully with the gouache. This is a combination I will use over and over again.

Night Driving 2

Night Driving 2 was the first painting where I tried acryla gouache from Holbein. It is smoother and more flowing than regular gouache, which I actually did not like. However, I began this painting by doing an undercoat using the acryla gouache. Following the diagonal of the dashed line, I painted the left side yellow and the right side orange. I used the acryla gouache as regular gouache will stick to it but will not blend once it is dry. This allowed me to create small color stipples showing through the final surface.

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This painting was done on a 30" by 22" sheet of Arches rough watercolor paper. The undercoat was done in Holbein's acryla gouache, while the final layers of gouache were Winsor and Newton Designer's gouache.

Once the undercoat was dry, I began to apply the regular gouache colors. I started with thin coats, slowly adding and blending more coats. Typically gouache is used in water form similar to transparent watercolor, but I was enthralled by Thomas Paquette's gouache paintings. He uses rich thick layers of gouache.

The two enlargements here show the thickness and give an indication as to the texture of the finished painting. The gouache is thick enough to have a texture, yet, you can also still see the rough texture of the watercolor paper base.