I'm a Winner!

Yay! Just completed 50,556 words for the National Novel Writing Month - and ahead of the deadline (30 November). I am so pleased because I started late and did not really believe I would manage to get to the 50,000 words needed.

At least now I can get back to having some sleep! Lol

I intend to edit the novel after Christmas. You never know this could be the start of a whole new career!

The Walks

There's an old Victorian Park not far from my home, I was fascinated by the wet walkway in the evening light and yet I wanted to inject colour into what might otherwise have been a dark and dull vista.

I may do more to this... not sure yet. I have to leave it sitting awhile before I decide.

Gouache Experiment

Decided to try a little experiment with gouache and waterproof ink.

Firstly, drew the outline of the flower with pencil and then laid white gouache in places.




Then when the gouache was dry I painted over the whole thing with black waterproof ink.

Wait until the ink is completely dry. Then wash off under cold water using a brush to gently remove some of the ink. In theory, where the ink lays over gouache it should lift off revealing the white paper underneath and the ink where there was no gouache remains untouched.

The finish was not quite as expected - in fact, you could say it all went hideously wrong. lol

However, it is quite an interesting effect and I will try this experiment again. I quite like the effect, it's just the black lines across where it didn't quite work for me.

I think perhaps I need to lay the gouache a little thicker, allowing it to dry completely and then go over with the ink. I also think it might be better to try something a little more robust than 140 lb paper. This could be the reason the ink sunk into ridges or lines across the paper.

Gorgeous Gouache!

OMG! I'm in love! I have just discovered the delights of gouache. It's like coming home, I've found my medium, it's better than chocolate even!

This is just a small quick study and maybe if I try something larger I'll come down off this cloud but so far it's so wonderful to work with.

It's like using watercolour but without transparency, it's opaqueness means that it covers even dark colours. It's easy to make changes and yet you can work in detail much easier than with oils (at least for me anyway!)

I cannot wait to have more time so that I can really get to know my new love!