Gouache On the Go

GOUACHE WORKSHOP

Holbein Artist Gouache

• Lemon yellow
• Cadmium Yellow
• Flame Red
• Primary Magenta
• Ultramarine
• Primary Cyan
• Primary White
• (If you have another brand that’s perfectly fine, but I suggest not getting acrylic gouache…..)
• Winsor & Newton watercolor blending medium Transon Paint Saver Storage Palette Box 16 well portable airtight (Amazon, $11.99) small Gray Matters Palette paper pad
• Variety of softer brushes (watercolor brushes work well), some flats, some rounds
• Watercolor paper, preferably smooth texture (usually hot pressed), watercolor cards, or watercolor books. Small gesso boards (Ampersand makes great ones, or you can get Masonite and gesso it yourself.), sizes like 5×7”, 6×8”, 6×6” etc. are great for gouache.
• Water receptacle to wash your brushes
• Cloth or paper towels
• Tooth picks
• Painters’ tape
• Pencil and small notebook
• Reference photos to work from

Manon Sander is a Florida-based oil painter who has taken it upon herself to savor all the flavors of life. Starting a new painting is like hearing the soft, welcoming jingle of the ice cream truck on a sweltering deep-summer day. The air is heavy with the anticipation of a sweet reward, and as the color melts from Manon’s brush onto that hungry canvas, she tastes the simple, joyous flavor of childhood, when life was lived not just to the fullest, but bursting at the seams.

Like a kid waiting for the ice cream truck to come jostling up the road, Manon never stands still for long on that hot, sun-soaked street, instead dancing from one painting to the next.

Like her love for ice cream, her love for art started at a young age in her old stomping grounds of Bavaria and Berlin, Germany, and she has spent her life thus far traveling far and wide, letting the winds of chance carry her to live in Illinois, where she painted murals professionally, to California, where under the tutelage of some of the nation’s premier artists she found her contemporary impressionist style, and on to Florida, where she truly dove headfirst into her deep love for plein air painting. On top of that triple scoop of living locations, she’s had a generous helping of creatively inspiring rainbow sprinkle travels that range from the wild Alaskan tundra and the scarlet vortex-soaked rocks of Sedona to the crumbling haunts of emerald Ireland and the sea-smattered cliffs of the Amalfi coast. But with local treasures like Naples, St. Augustine, Palm Beach, and Apalachicola so close at hand, Manon is more than happy to call Florida her home.

No matter where she goes, Manon finds beauty in the light and the shifting, shimmering spectrum of colors it holds between its glowing fingers. However, Manon does not simply paint because the colors she sees are beautiful, but rather because the colors she feels are. A strong believer in finding joy in the little things in life, she seeks to capture and share the moments that give her the most happiness and evoke the rawest of uplifting emotions human nature has to offer. Manifesting these twinkles of delight through vivid oils has brought Manon to numerous awards, national juried exhibitions, galleries, invitational and juried festivals, and inclusion in publications such as Southwest Art and Plein Air Magazine. She was awarded Signature Status in the National Oil & Acrylic Painters’ Society as well as the American Society of Marine Artists. Manon teaches both weekly plein-air painting classes, as well as national and international painting workshops. Manon won 1st place in the St. George Island Paint Out and 3rd place in the Sedona Plein Air Festival in 2021. Manon is a regular on the faculty of one of the premier plein air conventions, Plein Air South, and gets regularly invited to prestigious plein air events like the Winter Park Paint Out, The Lighthouse ArtCenter Plein Air Festival, the Forgotten Coast En Plein Air Paint Out amongst many others.

Manon sees painting as being as natural and necessary as breathing, and as crucial, of course, as trying as many flavors of ice cream as possible in one very long and incredible summer.