Intro to Gouache: The Other Watercolor
Edward (Ed) Huff
WAITLISTED: email workshops@portsmoutharts.org
Wednesdays March 13th and 20th
1:00 – 4:30pm
Tuition:
$110 Members
$135 Non-members
Ed Huff, Bullocks Cove
Gouache is an opaque watercolor that is used quite differently from transparent watercolors. The techniques used with this vibrant medium will be explored and with a little practice you will gain confidence to create with renewed vision.
This class will introduce you to fundamental keystones of opaque medium. Your new skills and knowledge will help develop a confident approach to your work. My goal is to remove the beginning frustrations we all face as we approach something new. Gouache is an exciting and portable medium that just about anyone can master with the knowledge of a few basics.
We will cover these the following topics through demonstration and hands on practice.
Basics tools/materials and more
Building your gouache palette
Value vs tone
A bit of color theory
Seeing shapes rather than things
Light, depth, and space
Composition
How to practice your gained gain skills
Materials List:
Watercolor Paper – 140 lb/300 GSM cold pressed block, heavy Bristol paper works, illustration board is fine. Gouache can be used on almost any heavy stock. smooth or lightly textured.
Brushes: Minimum of three brushes, designed for acrylic or water color
You will need a couple of round brushes (#4 #6) and a flat brush (1/2 inch). If you already have an assortment of brushers bring them along
Paint: A few tubes of Gouache in primary colors will do. A good red (Cadmium red, Winsor red, Alizarin Crimson or another) A good blue like Ultramarine Blue or cobalt or pthalo. And a decent yellow (cadmium yellow deep, lemon yellow etc) and I would suggest a Burnt Sienna. Of course the foundation of a gouache palette is a large tube of gouache Titanium White. I work with mostly Winsor Newton gouache but any brand will do. Note: Student grade paints will work but are not as vibrant or as permanent.
Palette: A mixing tray, this can be a watercolor palette with mixing wells or simply a plate that can be washed clean. A palette with a lid works best to preserve the paint, keeping moist longer in storage.
A water container
Paper towels
About Ed Huff
Over the years of his lifetime, Ed has been making images. It is the everyday scenes that most move him, as he knows that they are too transient, as the landscape is ever-changing. Inspiration is in every view here in New England, the architecture, the woodlands and the sea, ever changing and ever present.
Ed left home in central Illinois the day after high school. 1967, the Summer of Love saw Ed off to San Francisco. That summer formed an image of America that he carries to this day. He then enlisted in the Navy, which brought him to Newport and lifelong friends and a wonderful wife.
Then college, kids and career. From printshop to ad agencies, to the newpaper. Then quitting it all and moving aboard a boat to explore the sea, knowing it would come to a logical conclusion, which it did after five years.
Ed then found work at a local university introducing new technologies to staff and students. Ed taught digital arts including photography, 3d modeling and animation, vfx and cinema. This led to working with a local manufacturer of industrial equipment as their “art guy”, leading to many new experiences.
It was there that the realization happened that all Ed had been making throughout his professional career was pixels. Mostly in formats not reachable today due to the ever-changing nature of the digital world.
He rekindled his relationship with brushes and pigments, mostly to chronicle the world as he views it. He began the quest to paint daily, before work, of the life around him and this became the foundation of a new passion.
Ed’s shelves are now lined with filled with sketchbooks with images. He has developed a passion to share a vision of his world through the use of pigment rather than pixels.