The Artist's Road Painting the World's Beautiful Places

Painting at Ladew Gardens

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

The Yellow Garden     8.5 x 11"     Gouache     John Hulsey

   What a wonderful experience to arrive at an amazing, old, public garden early in the morning as the sun is just beginning to burn away the mists and fog! My first impressions of this well-known garden in Monkton, Maryland, were filled with that foggy, diffused light, which always creates an atmosphere of mystery and dream. I was meeting up with the other plein air painters who knew each other and the garden well. After introductions, I ventured into the garden proper to scout for a good location to do my demonstration painting. I knew that there was not time to explore the entire garden before I had to set up and work, so I limited myself to the first topiary rooms of sculptured yews which had interesting windows made in them. I was demonstrating my techniques for painting with artist’s gouache, a water-soluble paint which can be used translucently or fully opaquely. This has advantages for the traveling artist, who, not wishing to deal with the heavier gear, solvent and clean-up of oils, wants the advantages of working “fat over lean”, where the lean is created with water.

   Artist-grade gouache is a fine art medium—centuries old—and a far cry from the inferior tempera paints we used in elementary school. It offers many of the advantages of watercolor. Washes can be applied with similar techniques, but with the bonus of making overpainted adjustments, like oil or acrylics. Plus, one can remove paint back to paper at any point to make a correction, if necessary. This feature really takes the pressure off of a demonstration performance!

Windows at Ladew     11 x 15"     Gouache     John Hulsey

   While there are many big, beautiful flower borders, pools of waterlilies and a walled rose garden to paint at Ladew, the garden's main features are the topiary shrubs and trees. They are magnificent sculptural forms and are used to create enclosures and discreet “rooms”, by theme. The painter must be very fluent in painting the many different shades and temperatures of green to work creatively in this environment. I discovered that as the fog burned away and the strong sunlight took over, I had to repaint all the greens I had begun in my demonstration! Although unplanned, this was a great opportunity to demonstrate both the correctability of my initial layers, but also the opaque versatility of gouache to the other painters. I was able to simply flood the lawn with water and gently coax the deeper, cooler green layer to run off my angled paper and then quickly apply a heavier, sunnier green in its place. For the yew window wall, I mixed up a slightly thicker version of the sunny green and dragged it dry-brush style over the existing paint, allowing specks of the previous color to show through. The water feature was painted last, mostly opaque right over the top of the drips and runs. If I get the value wrong, I just overpaint until it dries the correct value. Using gouache, there is never a reason to leave a subject less than what I intended.

   We hear often that greens are a challenge for many painters to differentiate and mix properly. Experience can cure this woe, but a little advance knowledge can really shorten that learning process. To help with this, we’ve written a series of nine articles for The Artist’s Road which you may find helpful. If you are a member, simply type the word “green” in the search bar to see the entire selection.

   Keep painting!