As you may know, I've been attending George Brown College School of Design for the past couple months. A few weeks ago, I began a project for Colour class. That project was to create an original, amusing graphic cartoon character and paint it using gouache. The catch is that we've only been allowed to use the twelve primary, secondary and tertiary colours, and we have to use all of them. Using only these colours also means that we're not allowed to use any white or black. No tints, no tones, no shades: simply pure hues.

When we purchased our "art kit" at the beginning of the year, it included some basic art supplies that we will need throughout the year. It came with five 14ml tubes of Winsor & Newton Designers Gouache: the primary colours, black, and white. When I began to mix my colours, I thought that the basic kit I was provided with would be enough... I was mistaken.

The first step in mixing gouache paint is to add water. From the Dollarama store up the street, I purchased some spice shakers. I took the screens out of them so that I had just a small glass jar with a snug fitting plastic lid. When I squeezed the heavy pigment out of the tube into the jar, I could see that it was at about the same consistency as toothpaste. At first I was adding a little water (one tiny drop from the tap, my teacher recommended an eye dropper), followed by a little gouache. I did this over and over again to get a consistency just less than that of cream, closer to milk. I did the entire red tube like this, but when I was mixing the other primarys I had gained the confidence to just squeeze the entire tube in there. It was important to make sure that I had all my primaries the same consistency - if they weren't, my colours wouldn't mix properly.

I used Goethe's light value to calculate the amount of colour I would use to get each hue. Interesting guy, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. He has been described as the last great polymath to walk the earth. A polymath is basically a fancy word for a jack of all trades. To put it in perspective, Leonardo da Vinci was considered a great polymath. Goethe worked in quite a few different fields of study, to list a few: theology, literature, humanism and specifically pertaining this situation, Goethe studied science.

In his book Theory of Colours Goethe discusses his light values. The light values are simple numerical ratios, that reflect the amount of colour needed to mix evenly with another colour. Because some colours reflect more or less light than others, it is important to ensure that they are mixed properly. For example, the colour yellow is a nine on the light scale, this means that most of its light is reflected, compared to red which is a six. That means to make orange, you will need nine parts yellow and six parts red, or three parts yellow and two parts red. Below I have specified Goethe's light values:

I used a 1/4 teaspoon measuring cup that came in a set, along with some other sizes, in a kitchen starter kit from Ikea. My teacher had suggested an eye dropper for this as well, however, I didn't have the convenience of owning one. Like my ex-army dad would say, make the most of all available resources.

The reason I had used such a small size spoon was: to be able to accurately measure the amount of each colour that I spooned out of each container. Because yellow is such a light pigment, it takes more of it to mix with other colours. When I first mixed my colour wheel I actually didn't have enough yellow to finish; there was no yellow-green or yellow-orange. I ended up using about one and a half tubes of yellow and only one tube of red and blue to complete the wheel.

When I was mixing my colours, I made sure to wash the spoon each time I dipped it into another colour. I also washed the brush that I stirred the mixed colours with. Gouache, especially the lighter pigments, is very contaminable. If even a little violet gets into a container of yellow, the whole thing will go a murky brown.

Before I started painting, I picked up some frisket from the Curry's art store on Yonge St., here in Toronto. Frisket is like a transparent sticker that you put on top of your work to stop unpainted areas from getting paint on them. It is often used in airbrushing to help control the spray of paint. In this instance, frisket is important because of the contaminability of gouache paint. I also picked up a #79 whiteboard by a company called Peterboard because of its tooth finish and medium thickness.

With pencil, I drew my character (named Bingo) onto the 10" x 15" whiteboard, lightly only showing simple shapes. Once I was satisfied with the graphite representation of my character, I laid the frisket on top of the board. Once the frisket was neatly placed I got my paints ready and carefully cut out the shapes I had drawn onto my board with a utility knife. I took the cutout, laying it aside and painted the shape. Once I had quickly painted the entire exposed area I walked away from it. It takes five to ten minutes for the paint to set properly, so before I moved on to any other areas, I needed to ensure that the paint was good and ready. Unfortunately, as many designers will realize, the clock will never work around you, so you've gotta work around the clock.

Once the first section was good and dry, I took the piece of frisket I had cut out and laid it back on top. I made sure to place it exactly, to eliminate space between different colours on my board. I have since been told never to lay frisket on top of gouache. Some types of frisket will take the gouache with it once you peel it off again, so just be careful. I also learned to watch out for the dry paint on the edges of the frisket. Sometimes it will bleed into a newly painted area if it gets wet. A very important thing to remember when painting with gouache is that you cannot paint gouache on top of gouache. The gum arabic used to hold the pigment together will get sucked up by the lower layer, leaving the upper layer of gouache dry and cracked. Once I had all of my paint on the board I outlined it with a Sharpie brand permanent marker to bring out the colour.

Overall I am satisfied with my work. I do feel that at times I rushed too much. With a little patience, and closer attention to instruction, I could have enhanced the overall appeal of the piece. I hope you like it.

Thanks for reading - here is the final product. Click to view it in full size.