October art demonstration​

Artist: Kate Wrigglesworth 

Topic: A Mythical Theme in Gouache 

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Kate’s background was in theatre and design. 

To start, Kate showed us some previous work based on Aesop’s Fables, which was the theme of her demonstration work. She has been the artist in residence at a children’s hospital and some Indian dancers mimed some of the fables for the patients. 

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Gouache techniques - like watercolour, Kate starts with washes, but it’s a bit more forgiving than watercolour, as you can paint over it. With gouache you can mix colours with white. It doesn’t matter if colours are painted over, as the blending can give a nice effect. Gouache paints are heavier but flatter than watercolour. It goes where you want a bit more reliably than watercolour. It can be used neat, especially useful with white.

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Kate describes her style as expressive. As she has a theatre and dance background, she likes to add movement and a lyrical feel. She has a feel for the colour and builds up in layers. Ultramarine, viridian green and lime greens were mixed for the wash layer. Yellow ochre was added for a path. In terms of paper, Kate prefers to have some texture but not too much. Winsor and Newton have stronger pigments and are her preferred gouache paints. She also uses Rosa watercolour paints that are closer to gouache than most. To some extent you can put in a background and then paint over it. To get rid of a large area you can go over with white and then go over with other colours. Kate says she has sometimes run it under a tap!

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The paper had a sketch on it to start with, but Kate says she doesn’t always stick to this exactly. She decided to make it an autumnal scene, using warm colours, partly because of the season and partly because of the golden eagle. Kate works on the painting as a whole rather than concentrating on one area. 

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Kate always dreamed of living in a pink house and often includes one in her paintings. In terms of colour Kate has her favourites but says, although she tries not to overdo it, she definitely wouldn’t describe herself as less is more. Kate will work from memories and although she might look at some references, but will never copy them. 

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Once everything was mapped out, Kate went in with a much bolder colour. For the demo she used a synthetic brush that is wider than her normal sable watercolour brushes. Whilst painting, Kate imagines the contours of the land and tries to follow it. 

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Geoff asked about the lack of use of perspective and how Kate makes it pull together. Theatre led her somewhat into that style and is also heavily influenced by post-impressionist art, which in turn was influenced by art from other cultures. Kate said it was important to learn how to do things properly in order to learn how to push the boundaries. 

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After the break, Kate shared that she likes to use some iridescent paint. This she mixed with some cobalt for the sky and painted over it. She said you can always paint back over to reinstate the colours but it does not seem to lift the paint to a greater extent. Kate also added a little gold in the painting, in line with the warm colours used. You don’t notice it in a print but you can see it when viewing an original. 

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If not working on anything else, Kate estimated it would take a couple of days to finish with the depth of colour of her other work. She likes to step away and look at it with fresh eyes.

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The painting was compared to a patchwork quilt. There is no fading of colours into the background, rather Kate looks at a painting aesthetically, in terms of what colours work well together. 

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Painting has to be the best thing in the world to work things through. Kate goes into a zone and works more intuitively and tends to analyse afterwards. Despite this, Kate likes to observe from nature, for example going out with a sketchbook as it gives you a vocabulary to work with.