Looking Again Through Daily Painting: Four Days of Citrus

I’m hoping this blog can be a reference point for me in the future to see the color combinations, but I was not expecting getting true-to-lfe photos to be so difficult! The colors are as close as I could swing it through the scan and color correction in photoshop, but I am not yet a whiz with technology. I bought a new phone with a fair camera last week, so I’m hoping that with regular practice my photography and editing will become better. For now, scanning still seems to work best (I’ll share one comparison below), even though it washes out the lighter hues.

These are the papers and gouache I have been using so far:

The gouache I have really loved. The Holbein 18 set can be bought on Dickblick here for $62 but I lucked out and found it on Amazon for around $35 in December. The watercolor paper I bought from my city’s Hobby Lobby, thinking of using it just to experiment, and it has been… not great. The 8”x8” pad has held up pretty good, but the smaller sizes of the same paper pill easily and have a less pleasant texture. I will be upgrading to a better paper next time, and I have a few of Ampersand's clayboards on their way to try out!

As a note of warning, when I needed to restock my white the only gouache my local Hobby Lobby carried was Plakkaatverf Designer Gouache. Maybe it works well for other uses, but for me it has mixed terribly with my other paints, and has a watery, sticky texture. I’ll be sticking with Holbein for now.

My last four paintings have all had a citrus focus. My groceries included a bag of grapefruits last week and I have loved the bright, juicy colors!