Gouache and Ink resist - Self critique

As promised yeserday, i'm showing you my attempts at the Gouache and ink resist technique.

This week, we had a discussion in our yahoo group New Inspirations, about how in our group we are able to show each other our mistakes, whereas on a blog we feel pressurised to show only our best pieces of work.

So with this self critique, i've decided to show you 'warts and all'.

When i came to do this technique, i found that i had every colour under the sun in gouache, except white. typical, as this is the best colour to use.

So instead i experimented with Poster Paint. The type that children use, because it's washable.

So here is my very first attempt. All are ATC size

I started first with a simple image. I chose the moon gazing hare, as it's something i've been meaning to have a play with for some time.

Some of the ink appeared very washed out in places, so went over with some more ink when it had all dried.

With the first attempt, you can see exactly where you should have put the gouache (poster paint), so is worthwhile doing a mock up one first.

The black marks on the right hand side of the hare, have been caused by the paint cracking when using the heat gun to dry it. This i feel gives it a more 'printmaking' kinda feel to it.

In Ange's tutorial, she advises watercolour paint, but i prefer using acrylics, and use them in a watercolour kinda way.

Not bad, but not what i was looking for. I want to see just how much detail i can get into one of these pictures.

Next i did an Egyptian Lady, to see if i could put a bit more detail in.

As you can see, once again the ink is a bit wishy washy, but decided to do an experiment with it.

I gave it coating of red artists drawing ink, over the entire black ink, and it picked up the highlights quite well.

This is after i used acrylic paint and brusho ink to colour in the lady. Notice the boxers broken nose. This shows how careful you have to be when applying the gouache (poster paint).
But i like the effect it has given. To me it reminds me of the sphinx, made out of sandstone, and eroded away over time.

So next i decided to try something with even more detail. This time i tried my hand at painting a horse. The very first time, methinks that i have attempted to do a horse, but as Ange was the technique adviser and has a love of horses, this persuaded me to have a go.

Not bad for a first attempt, but feel this is definitely not a subject to choose for this kind of technique. It is slightly impossible to get the feel of the muscular power of the horse. Well it was for me.

So for the last experiment, i decided to back to the Moon gazing hare, as this is what i wanted to attempt in the first place, but this time, much more detail.

Through the other experiments, i found that applying the gouache paint with small brushstrokes, and not attempting to make it smooth, this also made more printerly marks.

So using this idea, and the heatgun to crack it, it should make more detail appear. I feel that i have achieved what i wanted with this picture. I have also left it in black and white, as felt that colour was not needed.