Egyptian Goose Watercolour

Egyptian Goose Step - 22 x 30cms Gouache on Khadi paper

The geese were developed from my watercolour sketch:

I have a passion for  Egyptian Geese but have only seen them at an agricultural show in Umbria.

Often the desire to paint birds means one has to beg, borrow or steal (never!) a photo reference.  This time I am extremely lucky to have a wonderful photograph taken by a good friend in Richmond Park, London.  I could go on painting it forever.

© Alison Staite 2012

Birthday Card Art

What a month June is for birthdays!  This year I've been painting cards for people I love.

Gouache & Brush Pen

Acrylic & Brush Pen

Solar Plate Etching

One of these birthdays took me to Paris but that's a story for another post.

Tulips in the blue jug.

Watercolour & Gouache 35 x 35 cm

I love a gift of flowers and the beautiful yellow tulips we received on HWEM's birthday had to be painted.  They say yellow flowers are the most difficult to capture and you'll get no argument from me.  

This a piece of Khadi Indian cotton rag handmade paper.  It isn't a great ground for transparent watercolour as the size repels the moisture and the surface quickly breaks down with scrubbing but it loves thick creamy gouache, which I introduced at the end.

Gouache on a Gold Ground

Gouache on HP paper - 28 x 38cm

Granada Gouache

Granada - 33 x 35cm gouache on Khadi paper

Some of my favourite things about Granada.  

I didn't actually see a Song Thrush in Granada but there was what looks like a tiny one on a beautiful tin of Pimenton Picante that I had to have.  We have thrushes in the garden here in Tuscany at the moment but they refuse to sit and pose for me.  I owe the reference for this little fellow to the generosity of photographer Dick Daniels - Birds of The World - An Online Bird Book.  

Collage can be scary

A cage is a cage - gouache & collage on Khadi cotton rag
25 x 30 cm

This painting was always intended to be collaged. It's the fourth in a series. Then I got to the point where I thought, I really like the dove. Am I going to ruin it with the fan tail? Thank goodness for Scotch Magic Tape - in the short term it will allow me to change my mind.

Tuscan Farm in Gouache

My Nonna has a farm in Toscana
Gouache

Framed and Sold - Gouache

This gouache/collage was sold at Christmas but has had to wait until now for its owners to return to Tuscany to choose a frame. Now it's deciding where to hang.

There are few things that make me happier than to see my work beautifully framed. I'm inspired to have the other two in this series framed in exactly the same style.

Artist reflected in her own work!

Still Life in Provence and Antique Market

Gouache on handmade rag paper
21x30cm

This still life was painted in the dining room in Julian and Ruth's house, where I'm cooking dinner in their beautiful and extremely well-equipped kitchen while I write this post.

The turquoise pitcher is my new favourite object (along with two others yet to be revealed) that I found at the famous Sunday market at L'Lsle sur la Sorgue here in Provence.

I could have shopped until I dropped but I kept it within reason. Below are a couple of photos of the beautiful town.

Hoopoe & Feather in Gouache

Balance - Gouache & collage 29 x 29cm

This is the third in my series of gouache and collage.

Editor's Note: I've replaced the image to get rid of the grey colour cast.

Cat and Gerberas gouache and collage.

Tippi & The Gerberas - 28 x 28 cm gouache & collage

Some of my favourite Sydney things. My model is Tippi, my daughter's much loved cat.

A few of my favourite things - gouache

Gouache & Collage 29 x 29cm

Ducks, feathers, eggs, lavender, butterflies and the Tuscan landscape are some of my favourite things. The hidden favourite is the inspiration of British artist, Mary Fedden.

The idea for this painting has been stewing ever since I was sitting admiring a host of butterflies around a lavender bush and along came a duck - chomp!

Bantam Rooster

Gouache on Clairefontaine Papier Kraft 90gms

Pentel Brush Pen on watercolour spatter

Pentel Pocket Brush Pen

This is the little bantam rooster who lived a short but happy life at my favourite olive farm.

My darling daughter bought me the brush pen for Christmas and of course, since Roz Stendahl inspired my passion for a brush pen, it's not surprising that my first inspiration was to draw fowl, which is something Roz does so brilliantly.

Tuscan Landscape Gouache

Tuscan snow 13 x 12 cm
Gouache on Terraskin

For this gouache landscape I was drawn back to the samples of Terraskin paper Jeanette Jobson of Illustrated Life gave me to test. I really love this ground because while the gouache goes on looking very patchy it dries velvety smooth.

The inspiration for the painting was a photo I took on my morning walk after our first snow just before Christmas. Having joined Katherine Tyrrell's new project The Art of the Landscape I figured I had better get cracking and paint some landscapes, even if I'm finding the weather too miserable to get out and paint.

Happy New Year everybody. I've been very lazy over the festive season. I didn't even make any resolutions for 2010 except a promise to myself to FOCUS. It a challenge for me to stop dashing in all directions; trying every new craze; following every Pied Piper of the Palette and instead, to focus on a couple of main areas of artistic expression. Painting in gouache from a combination of life, photos and imagination is one area of focus, my printmaking is the other. Let's see if I can stay on track.

Gouache on Terraskin stone paper

Morning Snow - Gouache on Terraskin 19.5 x 13.5cm

At the beginning of December Jeanette Jobson who blogs on Illustrated Life started testing various media on a new ground called Terraskin which is made from a crushed mineral powder held together with a non-toxic resin - effectively paper out of stone. Since Jeanette only has one tube of gouache I volunteerd to test the Terraskin as a ground for gouache.

We woke to snow this morning so I dashed out to the garden to take some photos and used one as a reference for the little painting above. The 'paper' has a beautiful soft, smooth, almost velvety surface and is quite heavy. It cuts beautifully but wouldn't tear easily. I noticed in the tests I did on a scrap that it is quite easy to lift highlights from painted areas but one has to be careful because the paint takes longer to dry than on watercolour paper and colours will run into semi dry areas. The gouache dries to a lovely smooth bright finish on this paper. I imagine it would be great for reproduction.

I'm trying very hard not to fall in love with Terraskin because I don't imagine I'm going to find it in Italy in the near future. Many, many thanks, Jeanette for your generosity in sharing some samples.

Gouache sketch, plus...

Neighbours' Washing
Gouache on Clairefontaine brown kraft paper

If you visit on Sunday night you are probably going to be offered leftovers. That's what this post is ... leftovers from a few days of experimenting.

That's a new Clairefontaine sketchbook above - I like the colour but it is very thin and the paint is inclined to collect on the ridges of the paper.

Another experiment - Pigma Micron 005 pen with watercolour wash on rough CP paper. It's a corner of my favourite Piazza in Florence, where I'm going to stay next weekend. So you could call this one Practice.

Hydrangea - Monotype
- Caran d'Ache Neocolor II watersoluble pastels on Japanese Ho Sho paper

Monotype - oil paint on Fabriano white paper

So, who said I have too many art supplies?!

Persimmon Monotype Print

Persimmons -Monotype 20cm x 20cm Gouache on Fabriano Paper

This is a hand-rubbed monotype of gouache transferred from a glass plate.

Unfortunately with the gorgeous ripe persimmons of autumn comes the thick, grey fog that makes it very difficult to photograph prints and my scanner has dropped out too much detail.

Persimmon Tree decked with ripe fruit.

And another - they are all over the place.

Kaki Pen Sketch and Gouache

Lami Safari Pen and Gouache

What I most love about winter in Tuscany - and I'm keeping count on one hand - is all the Kaki (Persimmon) trees dangling their golden fruit like Christmas trees.

I picked up a couple of fallen fruit on my walk the other morning and by the time I'd sketched them we were off to buy our own Kaki tree.

Small House Big View - watercolour sketch

14x9 cm watercolour sketchbook from Zecchi

I took gouache rather than watercolours on my morning walk and then tried to use them as watercolour washes. I don't know what I was thinking. It was very frustrating trying to mix colours and then the paper in this new sketchbook stayed damp for a long time so when I came to add some detail with ink it ran everywhere. As a result I added a little transparent watercolour when I got home.

Lately I have become very interested in monotype prints using diluted oil paint. This iris print was the first large work which was produced in three stages. The first stage I used a japanese brush to paint the iris in black oil based ink. I pulled the print and loved it. Stage two I went back to the plexiglass plate and guided by the original sketch which I'd fixed under the plate I painted in the flower and leaves. I pulled the same print through the etching press again. Less certain about the result this time. Stage three I added the background. Horrible choice of palette. I should have thought a great deal more about this. End result - very disappointing.

I'm not going to give up on this idea. Next time I'll work backwards through the three stages .

Dorset Landscape in Gouache

Dorset in Gouache on grey paper - 5" x 7"

Even though August is supposed to be my printmaking month, I'm missing the little landscapes I was painting during my morning walks in July.

Since it's been too hot and I've been lacking motivation, I haven't been Sketchercising but when our friend Catherine M. sent some photos of a walk in the Dorset countryside, I decided to make it a gouache exercise. I'm still not at all comfortable with gouache but when I see what artists like Nathan Fowkes can do with opaque watercolour, I have to keep trying.