241 Pets and Gouache Kit

A mixed bag again this week. My ink sketches for the month of Inktober totally ran off the rails. Not surprising for me 😄

I decided instead I should do a few more pet portraits to try and boost interest in my Pet Portrait page on Facebook.

This is Thor, painted from a photo posted by Kay on Wetcanvas.

And a cat named Oliver Bean, painted from a photo posted by Yulonda on Sktchyapp.

These originals are both available for purchase – $AU60 150 x 170 mm Watercolour on 300g watercolor paper.

At last weeks outdoor painting group session I decided to try out a Stawet palette using gouache. It wasn’t very successful unfortunately. It was a rather windy day and the palette paper I used in the palette dried out too quickly and almost blew away. It might work in calmer conditions. 
I sort of followed James Gurney’s advice on making my palette. James is a master with gouache and a lot of information is available on his site –  this page has lots of information. You can also see how one reader made his own wet palette on another page. 

Anyway, this was the result of a very pleasant couple of hours with pleasant company, despite the wind.

I then changed my idea of how I’ll paint with gouache while travelling. I decided to use my tiny credit card palette, you can see how I made it here. Here’s a practise run with this setup, painted from a photo of the Italian Alps.

I pre moistened the gouache with a couple of drops of water and let it sit a short while before painting and it worked fine, and used my own design travel brushes 😊

The travel brushes I made from a 3/8 flat brush and a #6 round, cut down to fit inside the barrel of old calligraphy pens. I roughly measured the length of the handle to fit far enough inside the barrel so the bristles wouldn’t bend when the cap was fitted, then glued in place with hot glue. Works fine for me and now I won’t be worried about losing my good brushes while travelling 😄