Watercolor Painting for "Gates and Doors" Challenge

You can probably tell this was a real quickie.  It was done for a challenge on an art site I belong to (Art Class Friends) where the theme was "Gates and Doors".  As usual, I had to put an animal into it!

Watercolor on Arches Hot Pressed.

Experimenting with Gouache

Since finishing Bracken, I've been experimenting with gouache again.  I really like using it in combination with watercolor but decided to try it the way I understand it's supposed to be used - like acrylic or oils.

One reason I decided to play with gouache this way was to try to learn acrylics without having to clean brushes constantly.  Because gouache is water soluble, you can leave your rinsed out brushes without doing a thorough cleaning of them.  The gouache doesn't set up in the bristles like acrylic or even oil.  I guess I have to be careful not to get into bad brush habits just because I can leave brushes when using gouache.  I don't want to carry any bad habits into my work with acrylic!

I'm not at all satisfied with this painting and may continue to work on it or I may go over it with pastel.  The gouache dries very quickly and smooth strokes and gentle transistions are very difficult for me to achieve.  I do like the basic premise of this but know it could use a lot more work.  The question is whether I want that work to be in more gouache or pastel!

Oh, this painting was done on Arches 140# hot-pressed watercolor paper with Lukas gouache.  I've taped it off so that the actual painted area is 8 x 10 inches.

As always, comments and suggestions are always welcome.

Still Kicking Lions - errr, On a Lion Painting Kick

Lion _ ACEO 2-1/2 x 3-1/2"
watercolor
copyright
Jan Gibson

I don't know what it is about painting lions lately but this will be my third one in about 2 months! Lions certainly aren't my favorite wild animal or anything but there is something compelling about them, isn't there?

I don't know how many of you remember watching Bob Ross paint on PBS, but if you do, then you heard him say to use "two hairs and some air" when blending. That was one of his stock phrases when he blended with that fat two inch brush of his!

I can almost say that this painting was done using about two hairs and some water! I like to paint relatively small, but it's so much harder to paint tiny and actually have it look like anything! This probably took as long to paint as a larger painting but it was fun.

The ref photo came from Wet Canvas and I think I'd like to paint a larger version of this guy. However, I think I'd use pastel the next time!