Autumn in Japan- Gouache

Needless to say, Japan has always been fascinating to me. I felt very lucky to be able to make my two week visit with a group of wonderful friends (despite our differences, ups and downs, disagreements, etc). The scenes and natural landscape in Japan were very photogenic so I took a ton of phots. It was late September when we went so the foliage hadn’t changed colors completely but it was starting to happen slowly.

During the last day of my interior design class, a classmate talked about gouache. I find it fascinating; it creates matte and opaque finish. I like to freely paint so I use acrylic; however when acrylic dries it has a glossy finish and sometimes when the paint dries, it is not the same as when the paint is wet.

Painting in gouache

Rendering- Matching Marble with markers and watercolor

Our next project in class was to match marble with markers and watercolors. The technique and trick to it is, all the elements I lack in my personality, patience, spontaneity, letting go and minimal control.

The reason for this is when you do the lines for the marbles, you hold the high point or tip of your pencil to let it spontaneously trail off the paper. As for the watercolor portion, you use a ton of water, let it dry and flow.

My teacher is great with it, she does it so naturally with seemingly no effort and as it dries, it looks like it has depth and full of bright color. I am still an amateur who’s reluctant to give up. 🙂

Matching Wood in markers and watercolor

Another class project was to match wood with markers and watercolor. We used prismacolor markers which is a transparent but permanent marker. Marker paper is special in a way if you want to add color, you can color in the back as well. To create the wood texture, you need to use the marker vertically, layered with base color gray, additional colors as needed, and use color pencils to draw the grain. The colors were really hard to match; you would always use markers first because with watercolors, you can create infinite colors but with markers, the probabilities are somewhat limited (as per my teacher).

Top marker, bottom watercolor in three different shades.

If you have the right guidance, it is achievable-never perfect but still nice.

Rendering- Watercolor vs Fabric

I haven’t been updating the blog much due to nostalgia of Japan. The culture has fascinated me for many years and the experience of being there was surreal; it left me feeling empty when I came back because the dream or vacation had to end at some point. Instead of thinking of these emotions, I was just going about my daily life which consisted of a 9-5 job, study group for JLPT N4 (we are so unmotivated), Japanese class and last but least, interior rendering class.

The first project we had to do in class was find a floral fabric pattern and copy it exactly on watercolor paper to be filled in with watercolor. It should be an exact duplicate; the only difference should be the white background vs any other color background you had on your fabric.The drawing is easy since we used carbon paper to trace but matching colors on two different mediums is not the same. In garment production, we often send artworks to factory on paper with fabric swatches and expect them to match it by submitting strike offs (screen prints on fabric); if one expects it to match exactly, one is naive. on two different material, due to lighting, weaves, materials, reflections of light, it is impossible. Paper is not fabric afterall and they have different material properties.

Here is my try on it! Not perfect but, as we love to say in production after the 3rd attempt, Best Can Do!

Disclaimer- Please note I do not own the print- This is for a class project only 🙂

Color Theory- Random Thoughts

Two classes ago, we were told to color match color aid paper with gouache. Gouache like many other types of paint such as acrylic and watercolour looks different when it is wet vs when the paint is dry. So when you are experimenting with the paint and mixing colors, what you may visually perceive as the perfect shade when wet might dry to look completely off. This is annoying; super annoying & hair tearing kind of frustrating. Under different types of lighting (UV lights, under the lamp, no lamp, etc) the color also becomes different.

Throwing my arms in the air, I was defeated and confessed my lack of talent for colors in general. Here is the result of my homework.

Naturally, I complained about it to my friends. About how people in my class were able to match the colors a lot better; perhaps I am color blind. It is a huge embarrassment because from time to time I consider myself an artist! (See below painting, I have painted last year with acrylic)

Yesterday, I looked at my classmate’s tubes of gouache. We all bought the same tubes of paint when we started class. Many tubes of gouache of hers were 4/5 gone…

Coloraid & Numbering

Coloraid is used commonly in color theory class. The first step is organization; it comes with a color chart so you can number the back of your deck. They are very expensive. A pack of 220 size 4.5″ x 6″ costs me over $50!

Coloraid pack- Professor told us he once lined up all 220 color paper in order; after he took a photo of it, the wind inadvertently entered his studio and messed it up. I think you have a high level of OCD to handle this.

Handwritten number! Finally finished with 220 paper!

It was said that this should take 20 minutes. It took me over 40 minutes! Not as simple as it looks. This is only the beginning… Let’s see if I survive!