Exploring painting using gouachewith Lyn Davis

Join Lyn Davis on this two-day workshop offers an introduction to the expressive and versatile qualities of gouache, a medium that sits beautifully between watercolour and acrylic. Participants will explore how gouache can be used opaquely or transparently, layered, reworked, and combined with other media to create fresh, lively paintings.

The workshop encourages a spontaneous, intuitive approach to painting, while also developing essential skills in observation, composition, and colour awareness. Working from life, participants will create one or two small paintings, learning how to simplify forms, capture light, and respond to what is seen rather than overthinking the outcome.

Day One – Landscape
If weather permits, the group will work plein air, painting directly from the landscape. If conditions are unsuitable, participants will work indoors using collected reference images. The focus will be on capturing atmosphere, colour relationships, and the overall feel of a place.

Day Two – Still Life
Working indoors from life, participants will explore still-life painting, focusing on composition, tone, and mark-making. This session supports careful observation while maintaining an expressive, loose approach.

Prerequisites
No prior experience is required — just curiosity, enthusiasm, and a willingness to learn and share in a supportive environment.

Duration
Two days, 3 hours per day.

Materials you will need to bring:

· Water colour or gouache paints.

· Palette each preferably well style.

· Watercolour brushes, range of sizes.

· Cardboard backing board to rest paper on.

Materials that Lyn will provide:

· Lyn will supply some of the above for those who cannot supply.

· Watercolour paper for 2-3 small paintings approx. A4 in size.

· Tub of white gouache which will adapt watercolour to a gouache quality.

· Some mat board off cuts and mounting materials to frame finished works.

· A range of fun still life items to inspire great pictures.

· A range of stimulus imagery should the weather not be suitable for being outside.

· A range of painted examples of my work.

Book your ticket there are limited spaces (Maximum 15 in the Class): Book HERE

$115 per person - Non Members

$85 per person - for ERAS Members

or $110 become a ERAS member (includes workshop ticket)

Book online at https:https://www.trybooking.com/DILAZ

Please note that spots are limited so bookings are essential.

Artist Bio

Lyn Davis is an artist who shares her time between the North Eastern outer fringe of Melbourne and the coast of the Mornington Peninsular. Lyn studied at Melbourne State College followed by a long career as a visual arts and crafts teacher. With a passion for working in a broad range of disciplines such as painting, drawing, printmaking, textiles. Lyn enjoys the challenges of communicating and sharing with others her arts experiences.

Always a lover of the Australian landscape this fascination only increased when she took up marathon training which enabled her to be constantly observing the wonderment of the natural world with its rhythms and moods. The enticing characteristics of the nearby bush and the shoreline of Port Phillip Bay are perennial themes. “Whilst these are my inspiration my ‘real’ subject matter is in fact the painting materials and mixed media that I am working with at the time. The exploration of paint be it watercolour, gouache, oil or ‘mixed media’ are paramount to my personal artistic expression. Techniques like layering, scraping, dribbling, finger painting, spontaneous accidently mark making give meaning to my interpretation of grasses, scrub, pools and reflections”.

Lyn Davis regularly shows her work and has included showing at:

Camberwell Art Show

Blue Moon Gallery, Artists Co Op Red Hill

Flinders Art

Mornington Art

DACE – Derinya Art

Whitehorse Art

Eltham Library Community Gallery

Lovegroves Winery

Gallery 247 ( Lyn Davis under National Register of artists. See sold and unsold paintings – 94)