Experimenting

I like the thought of having another option for plein air painting when I am traveling, that allows  me to leave my solvents at home. I spent today (a somewhat stormy day!) experimenting with three water based options. These were quick 8' x 10" plein air studies of the ever changing storm clouds. I kept my palette pretty much the same - a warm and cool of the three primaries plus yellow ochre and burnt sienna.

The first painting to the left was created with Holbein Water Soluble Oils. These pigments were definitely most like the pigments in my regular oils. The paint seemed "gummy" at first, but worked well together once the surface was covered. It worked well when using my knife and at times I felt like it was easier to apply with my knife and then soften into the painting with my brush. It is VERY slow drying and always had a slightly gummy feel to it. When using this paint be sure to never use an oil primed surface. The "look" of this study was most like a traditional oil.

The second study, the painting to the right, was painted with Golden Open slow drying acrylics. These are a softer body acrylic and even though I was not able to get the thicker textures like I was with the water based oils, I loved the creaminess and the way the colors blended with each other. It is definitely slow drying (still tacky 8 hours later), but it did set up enough to allow for some scumbling with a soft brush. I enjoyed working with these, but I felt the colors were not quite as rich as traditional oils. Like the water based oil, make sure your surface is not oil primed.

My final painting (left) was done in gouache. I have been playing around a bit with gouache over the past few weeks.  I love seeing what other plein air artists are accomplishing with it, but I admit I have struggled. The first struggle was the surface. The surfaces I have have tried so far  (cold press water color paper, multi - media paper, and oil painting paper) have been too absorbent or have seemed to grabbed the paint instead of letting it flow. The second struggle was the strength of the pigment - I just wasn't able to get values as dark as I would like. Today I tried hot pressed watercolor paper and I added a Holbein Ultramarine Blue and Alizarin Crimson and problems solved! In fact, this may have been my favorite of the three. I was able to work transparent and opaque. The gouache dried fast so that layering was easy, but with a bit of water, was also workable. The pigment in the Holbein was strong and created great darks ( I plan to replace my whole palette with this brand) and the whole painting dried and was ready to be packed up in no time. Gouache makes a fantastic medium for small color studies to take back for references for large studio paintings.

While none of these will ever fully replace my traditional oils, it was a nice change of pace to try something different. I'd love to hear your thoughts!