I’ve been recently giving my hand at trying to water color and do gouache. Gouache is pronounced like squash, but with a g. I did not know that, for I kept calling it something totally different.

I don’t know which one I like better, for they are somewhat the same and somewhat different. Both are water soluble and can be reactivated by adding water to them, but one is where you paint light on dark (gouache) and the other is dark on light. Gouache is a mix between acrylic, without the permanence, and water color.

The only problem I am having is that Charley has been fighting for attention like crazy. She’s been so bad. She knocked over my palettes with paint in them and drank out of my water that I use to clean my brushes, all while giving me the side eye. She’ll start whining, throw her bone at me (no joke) and start barking for no reason at all.

Actually she’s here right now as I am trying to write a brief post for the day. That’s another thing. I would like to do a post a day whether it be our daily doings or just post some sort of fact I’ve run across.

She’s an attention hog.

I am obsessed with water color and gouache right now. I keep buying all these new brushes and new paint palettes and paint pans and new paper for my new endeavor in hopes that will make me an artist overnight. I’ve been watching countless YouTube videos about “A Beginners Guide to Water Coloring,” or, “Simple Beginner Gouache Paintings Anyone Can Do.” I swear I was better before I started watching these videos because I think I had the ignorance of not knowing the “proper” technique. But is there a proper “technique” when it comes to art? Andy Warhol says no, I think… Other people say no.

But it’s hard when I’m watching these videos and it looks so dang easy, and I start to do it and it becomes a frustrating and messy mess. A simple tree ends up looking like a tangled green blob on top of a brown stick. A landscape ends up just like looking like a bunch of colors dancing around with each other on the paper.

These are the things I’ve learned so far. There is cold pressed and hot pressed paper, and cold pressed is preferred. Cold pressed has some grooves on it which catches the paint, while hot pressed is very smooth and better for precise painting. Another thing about paper is that it is recommended for it to be 100% cotton. I ordered some and will be getting it in a few days. I sure hope it will make my tree look like a tree. I like to blame something else on my what feels like an artist inability to me. I’ve heard “anybody can be an artist” so many times.

Ok…..yeah, sounds good. Like, how long does that take? Or anything on a piece of paper is considered art?

I try to do abstract art by covering up my bush mess of a tree and it ends up looking like a sheet of paper with blobs and weird shapes. I’m sure that is not art.

I know I won’t be an “artist” over night, so I just continue watching my videos and pretending I’m in school.

Brushes and paint are important as well, but I won’t go into that right now. I was told “all you need is a couple brushes, some paper and paint” and that it would cost “about 20 dollars to start off.” Yeah, ok.

Well, it has turned out to be an addiction for me. I want to try each different kind of brush, try different paints, get different “pans” of paint to try….20 bucks is not covering it.

But in the meantime it keeps my idle time that usually starts filling my head with unwanted thoughts into a new focus. It gets me out of my head, and that’s what I like. It’s good clean fun.

That and walking Charley, which is what she is hinting we do right now, even though we just got back from a 2 hour outing.

Maybe she just wants to be a model for my next masterpiece.