Gansai Tambi Sketchbook Tour
I have been focusing on using my Gansai Tambi watercolors in my sketchbook. This has been a low pressure way to practice with a new medium and I am trying to just take some time to play and relax in my sketchbook while everything else in my world starts to speed up as spring marches towards summer.
My Current Observations
I do enjoy the colors. I enjoy the overall vividness of the palettes, but there are also some moody colors, like the graphite series that I find to be a nice contrast.
I’m still getting used to the consistency and opacity of the colors. Some of the colors have a shiny finish that I do not entirely enjoy. This is fine for my sketchbook, but I’m not sure how I would incorporate it into my non-sketchbook work. I have yet to try the paints on my nicer 100% cotton watercolor paper to see if it yields different results.
I do not like my bamboo brushes. I used them a bit for some interesting textures, but overall I do not see them as brushes that I will use very regularly for painting.
Plum Blossoms
According to my phone, these flowers belong to a type of plum tree and they are another sign of spring during my afternoon walks in Golden. For this sketchbook piece, I wanted to see how to paint white flowers and how much I could really layer the colors on top of each other. I primarily used gofun white, white, and gray for the flowers. I was even able to add some white as a top layer, though it added a bit of a glossy sheen to the flowers. I wanted the flowers to pop on the page and added a blue background at the very end.
Lady Tulip
Each year I look forward to these flowers emerging in the museum’s front gardens. They are always a welcome surprise and reminder that even though it is probably still going to snow again, spring is here to stay. For this painting, I want to explore how I could get the pink and white colors to blend to create the tulip’s coloring. I did not achieve an effect that I was completely happy with, but I enjoyed the contrast between the pinks and the greens.
Dark Skies
One of my favorite things about Colorado are the thunderstorms and the contrast of storm clouds against a blue sky. I took a photo of these clouds on a walk to the library, which unfortunately for me, was just before the skies opened up for return home. For this painting, I wanted to see how the paint would handle the texture of the sketchbook and if I could accomplish soft rain. Overall I like the mood of this piece, but the brush strokes are a bit harsh in some spots.
Tulip Meadow
Is there anything more indicative of spring than tulips? This painting, while purely from my imagination, was inspired by a friend's visit to the botanical gardens where there are currently thousands of tulips in bloom. For this painting, I just wanted to keep it simple and see how I could layer colors on top of each other. I started with the basic greens using horizontal strokes wet on wet and then added some vertical strokes as the paint started to dry. I took full advantage of the opacity of these paints to add the tulips in various colors.I finished the painting by adding some texture. Not the most technically sophisticated painting, but it is the one I like the most.
What do you think? Do we like the effects of the gansai tambi watercolors or is it still too early to tell?