*takes a deep breath* Here's my artchemic experiments with gouache. It was a wonderful experience my brain learned to look at colors in different ways and danced with the tints, tones, shades and mixes until it couldn't stand anymore. My brain needs a break right now hahaha! it's a good feeling of tired, like after doing exercise. Okay here I go:

 

I should start by saying, this was truly an experimentation ground from the very beginning. Curious but ignorant about what gouache was and how to use them, I squeezed my tubes on a tray like watercolors, because all I knew is that gouache was "opaque watercolors". They went hard and it was extremely hard to activate them, so I used some (maybe too much) honey to make them gooey and usable. The result was a wonderful velvety paint, but sadly it still needed copious water to activate and therefore almost none of this exercises will have the typical thick and opaque coverage proper of gouache. I regret nothing, I will probably keep experimenting with honey for my next set of paint.. only this time I wont squeeze them out from the tubes.

-Color swatch collecting-

 

-Color wheels-

I love this color wheel sooooooo much!:

 

-Understanding warm-cool colors-

Teacheeeer! Did I guess right? hahaha, I'm still doubting my judgement about this colors, I think all my life I have judged color temperature more on their value than their temperature, so having a darker red as cooler feels so weird for me. I can't help but feel that I'm doing it wrong but let's see what others think?:

 

-Complementary grays and neutrals-

This was by far the hardest exercise. I was so sure I had the right hues but nope, ended up  making my owns, experimenting and here you have it:

I was so sure they were the same colors, my brain saw bright green and bright red, close enough!. But it wasn't that easy, heheh. The first muted red combination, I instinctively knew it was wrong. No idea how, but I can tell that it will shift to a brown. Probably because instead of muted, the red changes color... I don't know, so half way I fixed the green with some blue got grays! yay.

 

Second try and I went all "yeaaah, I can totally see it! no need to test first! and boom, green.

 

At this point I was doubting the calibration of my display and decided to stop looking at the color wheel and go with my gut feeling of "it needs a bit more red" and the result of my very culinary approach "a pinch of red, a bit of blue, mmm, better" is the one at the bottom. Probably should have added a tad of red for my neutral, but overall fine with it and what I have learned.

*Thread

 

Oops, the purple from the opposite page stained my monochrome green. (Note to self, slow down with the honey, your gouache remains hyper for way too long)

 

 

At this point, I think I ran out of white, for the next exercises I was scratching the walls, trying to get some last tints.

 

 

*Elemental

 

No white anymore, I improvised with water and transparent layers watercolor style:

 

*Eggs with wigs

 

I liked the pancakes, one is bright and playful and the muted version has a more serious, maybe even gourmet feeling (but they totally burned the pancakes).

 

This was my last piece, I wanted white so badly so I decided this will be the last for now. I based it on the color palette of a game's  (Vagrant Story)  cover illustration by Akihiko Yoshida ( I loove his style and colors). Didn't feel like posting art that is not mine and definitely don't have time to research copyright owners so I tried to post just the link to the illustration but it becomes picture when I paste the URL here...  Hope that's okay? I dunno, I have heard so much about not posting, using, sharing other's art that I don't know anymore @.@.  Anyway, back to the project, I really enjoyed this exercise and even discovered colors I didn't notice were there.

 

 

 

Thank you Marie!!!

I luuuuuv your class!