Lessons learned painting in gouache for a month
From Ki’s Corner: painting every day for a whole month + what I've learned so far.
Hi, Bonjour,
In the spirit of trying new creative endeavours, especially the ones I'm bad at. I took it upon myself to illustrate 22 gouache paintings in the hopes of getting better at painting using gouache. From setting up my work station in the morning to the final brush strokes on the page. The system of sticking to something for 22 days is no small feat. Here's some of my findings. Welcome back, Happy Monday?!! Welcome to Ki Corner. In this part of the world, I write about all things from being a freelance artist to my daily life. This week is an update on my 2 weeks of Plein Airpril challenges, painting in gouache. What I've learned how my routine has shifted. But also how it affects my work outside of the challenge.
Earlier this month, I wrote about my first two weeks of painting every day. As we close this chapter of the month. I can say how proud I am of getting to the end. Here are some of my findings.
Discovery?
Problem Solving:
Working at something for a whole month forces you to adapt and change on the spot. As much as I enjoy my fields of flowers, grass, and pinky pastel color palette, I knew I couldn’t keep doing the same thing over and over again. Sometimes, I felt like a painting wasn’t quite going my way. The dread of working on a piece 10 min into painting and realizing it still looks like crap. If I were working digitally, it would be a cool, easy fix, with the tool or color sliders. When working traditionally, that’s not quite the case. The only technology at your disposal is your beautiful brain and paint brushes. Multiple times, I find myself almost rage-quitting a piece. But gouache is an amazing medium to work with and is super forgiving. It just takes patience and a little time. I find my favourite pieces were the ones that I wasn’t too crazy about in the beginning.
Routine:
Another thing to add to Ki's routine list would be a painting in the morning. I wrote it in my previous letter. But there’s nothing like starting your day with a cute finished painting of your cat. Something tangible and finished was nice to have every morning. It sort of proves that you did something that day. I’m a big believer in small wins, and this part of my day was a small win. It gave me something to look forward to, but it also set the tone of my day. If I had a tough morning, it would reflect in the way I painted that day. Maybe a bit adventurous, I tried something out of my comfort zone. Or sometimes, I was rushed for time, I would fall back on what I knew. All interesting things to consider when creating and painting.
Implanting it in my everyday drawing:
After this challenge is over, I’m going to miss some of the techniques used and overall working in gouache. My goal for the upcoming months is to find a way to bring everything I learn to my digital work. I admire Anoosha Syed's art process when it comes to mixed media but also my friend Leanimation, who’s substack is all about creating childrends books spreads using diffrent mix media. Like girl, release that book made of your collages already. it's simply adorable. I've always been a big fan of mixed media, something I noticed back in January while keeping a sketchbook again. I think it would be really interesting to play around in my free time.
What would I do differently?
With every challenge and opportunity to grow, as an artist, the goal should always be improvement. Take what you've learned, be critical about it and see what you can improve on next time.
More paint, Use more paint! To truly get that painterly, thick gouache stroke, you need paint and a lot of it. I think this challenge has shown me that I get really watery mixed if I don't use a lot of paint.
I think one thing I want to be better at is taking my own reference pictures. Looking for references on Pinterest was hard. The app, being flooded with AI and Ads it was difficult to find good photography.
Thanks for reading. I think by the end of april, I was feeling a bit burnt out. I wish I had gotten this up sooner, but it's up now! Thanks for waiting. Feel free to share anything that you’ve done last month! Any big or small projects this month? mermay, monstermay, etc. Till next month! Bye for now! À bientot!
Bisou, Bisou ♡
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Your paintings turned out so lovely and touching.
It's hard to commit to a challenge like this when you have a full time job and a long commute where you are too tired to do anything after coming back home, but I definitely want to do a similar challenge to get back into consistently painting!
These paintings are lovely and you should feel proud of this collection! I did a challenge similar to this with 30 days of small acrylic paintings. It was tough and I fell behind in other areas of my life but I felt so proud of the achievement. I didn't love them all but overall, so satisfying.