Gouache problem July 23, 2021 11:45

I enjoyed doing the underdrawing for my next painting. I've been wanting to work with a public domain reference photo of two Victorian women sitting on the porch for a long time. I decided to include just one of the women and modified the photo quite a bit. I looked forward to not having to worry about the pencil marks smudging into the paint because they are so opaque that they just cover the pencil marks no problem.

Once I got the drawing done, I hesitated for a few days trying to solve some background issues. I wanted more detail in the background, but none of the things I tried felt right. So I just left it as is and started on the floor.

First thing I noticed was that the perspective was off, but that was not too difficult to fix due to the opacity. However, I was sitting there thinking how much easier the floor would be if I were using transparent paints. Hmm...

I really hated how the floor came out. The color was very hard looking, even though it was ultramarine, which is one of my favorites. It just looked cheap and garish.

So I tried to tone it down and give some modeling to the floor with other colors. This took me a lot of painting thin lines up close to the paper. 

I went to bed satisfied that I had improved it somewhat but still bothered by how ugly it was.

Had a lot of interesting dreams and woke up late, around 8:30. My eyes were burning like hell.

How reminiscent that was of the end of my using acrylics. I was loving using Golden's Open Acrylics, but after each painting session, my eyes and throat burned. I had gotten sensitized to the small amount of ammonia in the paints. I was really upset by this. I felt like I had finally gotten somewhere with acrylics. 

I had to switch paints and diddled around with M. Graham gouache, which to me smelled absolutely horrible, and home-made casein, which worked okay but it was a pain to make the casein binder all the time. Eventually I went back to watercolors because they don't smell and don't give off any fumes. I also had a much more informed perspective about pigments and painting in general, so I did better with them. 

I also got into oils at that time, thinking that would satisfy my opacity jones. I really miss the ability one has in acrylics to just paint over whatever you don't like. 

I never could get oils to be as thin as I wanted them because I cannot use solvents and have had problems doing detail on account of it. I also had problems with space. Without having a separate studio space anymore, I couldn't have five paintings going at the same time, which helped me deal with the slow drying.

Recently I even started using lead driers in my oil paints just so I could get the stuff to dry faster. I even bought some lead white and put other lead-based paints on my wish list, all because they would speed drying.

Then I got the idea of gouache. Solution to all problems, right?

Wrong.

I went and looked up the MSDS for WN gouache, and sure enough, they may cause eye irritation. Luckily, I haven't spent TOO much money on gouache paints. 

My experience with acrylics was that once I got sensitized, that was it. I tried other types of acrylics, used a fan, wore eye protection, waited weeks to see if the sensitization would disappear. Nothing worked. And I ended up with some serious eye problems, which I concluded had been caused by the ammonia fumes. I never want to have that experience again. I have one good eye; I can't afford any damage to it. So I am not going to persist with gouache.

That means that unless I want to start making casein again, which I guess is possible, I am back to using watercolors. I could try painting opaquely with them. There are some pigments that are naturally opaque. But maybe I just have to suck it up and deal with the issue of drawing underneath paint.

I could use india ink and thin lines. To me, though, that looks more like illustration. 

I could also try using the grey watercolor pencils I have. 

Or I could start making casein again. I still have the powder somewhere and the pigment dispersions, which I use nowadays with gum arabic. Lifting was a big problem I had with casein, but I have learned how to deal with that in watercolors and to turn a bug into a feature, so maybe that would work. 

I think, though, that I just have to stick to watercolors.