It has been a whirlwind getting everything ready for my Etsy shop for the holidays! It went from being closed to being stocked with paintings, prints, collage sheets, notebooks, and more! Now that the big shopping weekend is over, and I have stacks of items already prepped, I can relax!
Thank you to EVERYONE who came over to support me -- buying online classes or grabbing stuff from the Etsy shop -- THANK YOU! You help me continue to devote my time to art and blogging and sharing my discoveries!
Lately, I have been into gouache! I grabbed a couple of tubes of the lovely Holbien Acryla a few weeks ago and am in love with the matte look and how the paint behaves.
Then I remembered I bought three tubes of regular gouache at a closeout sale a couple years ago, and pulled them out to continue experimenting. The Acryla gouache is different than traditional gouache in that it behaves more like acrylics -- it's fast drying and will dry on the palette -- whereas traditional gouache can dry on the palette and be re-used just like pan watercolors.
What's the big difference? Gouache is opaque and matte. Just like the Blick Matte Acrylics I reviewed a couple months ago. Except I'm learning that it takes a lot less gouache to do the same thing when compared with acrylics.
I'm still playing and learning, but definitely am in love. If you want to play, you can grab a cheap set at Michael's (and use the current 60% coupon from Jo-Anns to get it for $4.33!).
This is the cover of a new art journal I made for myself. I've been missing landscape pages, and had a pad of Strathmore Mixed Media paper hanging around the house, so I put on a thicker cover and used my binding machine to make a quick journal. I have since covered her with clear contact paper to protect her since I spent so much time working on her (and just realized I never painted in her eyebrows! Oops!). Sometimes, it's not about buying the cool new stuff or making a complicated book...it's using what you have and worrying more about what you're going to fill it with, rather than the form it goes in. This book is all about alien/animal girls and gouache practice, two things I'm crazy about right now.
Well, I have to go pack! It's time for the annual art & craft retreat a local friend organizes every year down in Aravaipa Canyon. I'm teaching a couple ICE Resin classes and a gelli print class, and need to get to the studio to grab supplies! While I'm away, I won't have any internet or phone service, but my great friend Beth will be keeping an eye on things for me while I'm gone. Etsy will be closed, but you can still grab some online classes or digital items here on the blog.