Owls in Acryla Gouache: A New Workshop!

https://www.tomsarmo.com/

I'm excited to be teaching a new workshop at Foothills Art Center in Golden, Colorado!

Been working with Acryla Gouache lately on the recommendation of my studio-mate. (For years I used a quality sign-painters paint--until the quality went downhill.) But Holbein's Acryla Gouache is giving me the perfect matte look, opacity, and smooth application I want. It really is a blast, so sharing some techniques at a workshop was a logical next-step.

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Applying the paint to primed wood panels is my method of choice. I use a terra cotta gesso primer most often, which is peeking through the paint layers in the photo detail above. Sometimes rough wood is my choice...

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...and sometimes smoother. This fellow with the necktie is painted on a thick, pinewood disk.

There are numbers of different ways to paint with Acryla Gouache. Join me for the workshop--you'll take home your own finished owl... 

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...or your subject of choice, by the end of the day! 

Here's the link:

Tom Sarmo's Workshop

Thanks for the visit :)

Follow me on Instagram: @tomsarmo_art

The Old Witch, Part Two

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Hello again!
In the previous post I showed the prelims for the border (above is a detail of the stonework at the top)...

 ...but I hadn't shown my source for the border design. So here it is, snagged from a Dover clip art book. It's a lot of fun to let something like this generate fresh imagery!

When the design was all planned and sketched onto multiple layers of bum wad, I placed them onto my light table ( http://tomsarmo.blogspot.com/2013/08/quick-and-easy-diy-artists-light-box.html ) for tracing onto a sheet of 140 lb watercolor paper. Cold press is my choice most often. I chose a human femur for her cane, just for the subtle malevolence...

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...and went over the pencil lines with pen, brush, and india ink.

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I limited my palette to five colors--raw umber, burnt sienna, cadmium red, cerulean, and
ultramarine-- basically the primaries (a yellow, two reds, and two blues). Here's a preliminary wash of raw umber and cerulean over the pen work.

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Building up the layers, bit by bit.

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The obligatory and over-used hand-and-brush shot...

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...and a detail of the peeping scribe at the bottom of the border. I love hand lettering! Finding a font, nudging, changing, and embellishing it, and then adding the paint results in a particularly pleasurable feeling.

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Here's the staged shot of the final art with materials and reference props.
The poster--one of a series--will be available in 2015.

Thanks for following up on this--hope you enjoyed the process!

Heinrich Vogeler

 Die Hex mit Eule (The Witch with Owl), by Heinrich Vogeler, etching, 1895.

Recently ran across this work by Vogeler, which was unknown to me. Not only am I drawn to images of witches, ghosts, and the metaphysical, in this particular case it was the placement of the bright whites of the hair, trees, and toadstool. Check out that serene but creepy smile on the witch, and that exquisite door. 

Heinrich Vogeler

More on Vogeler: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/631806/Heinrich-Vogeler

Thanks for the visit!