Adventures in Gouache

I'm churning out a serious quantity of art lately, which is no wonder because at the end of the day, there's nothing like having a few hours of quiet.

Just me and a giant mess. Seriously, the hardest part about doing these is keeping this paper clean where I want it to be clean!

I'm working on broadening my horizons and stepping out of the wedding box for a bit and I got the idea of doing a guest book painting for a baby shower - where guests can each personalize a footprint.

In rummaging through my old paints, I salvaged a box of SUPER old gouache paints that must have been purchased in Hong Kong by one of my parental units. I was skeptical, because the paints are a million years old and I had never used gouache before, but DANG. It is a game changer.

I did some research online and it's exactly like everyone says - in between a watercolor and an acrylic. Opaque when you want it to be, but water it down and it dries like a watercolor. IT IS MY JAM.

I made a huge paper order from my dealer of choice - Cheap Joe's and I got some super nice Hot Press paper in today, so I'm anxious to get some paint on them!

But before I could, I decided to spend a few hours comparing prices for some mailing tubes, which led to creating a hot-mess of excel spreadsheets to keep track of cost and income from this little hobby.

Is there any feeling better than having finished an excel spreadsheet? Color coded, formulas all up in it, borders everywhere, tabs all labeled... never mind what the numbers look like, at least my spreadsheet is legit.

(Read: I'm currently in the red. Whatever. It's fine.)