I've been experimenting with gouache.

I usually work in watercolor, with acrylic here and there, but I was recently gifted a lovely set of gouache paints. So I did what any reasonable person would do: I immediately made two paintings.

She Considers Her Options ( bottom image)

gouache and ink on paper

A bird in green, caught in a world of crossing lines, planning her next move. Anger became stillness. Stillness became a plan. The lines don't get the last word.

What struck me immediately was the ability to move from opaque coverage to a wash without switching mediums — and the texture possibilities are genuinely exciting.

So I kept going.

Everyone Had an Opinion About the Blue Ones (top image)

gouache on paper, 9 x 12

Some pushed. Some pulled. A couple on the right were handling it their own way. The blue ones remained.

This is one of my creature paintings — I paint first, then sketch over it, which is how I work in watercolor too. The process was a little different with gouache because I had more choices at every stage. I like how it came out.

I'm curious: has anyone else worked with gouache? What are your thoughts on it?

In Aboriginal tradition, “Dreaming” refers to ancestral stories embedded in land and creature — not sleep-dreaming. It is a way of understanding the world as alive with meaning that predates and outlasts any individual life.

I’m relatively new to acrylic, but the medium felt right for this — something about its directness and opacity suited what I was trying to reach. What the piece says to me, though, matters more than how it was made. It speaks of a time and place of being held by nature — land and creature together, inseparable. There’s an immediacy to it that I didn’t plan and couldn’t have forced. Ancient mark-making is often patterned and repetitive, and yet far from being limiting, it opens onto something wider — a view free from the concerns and constructions humans have layered onto the world over centuries. Sitting with that felt like a kind of relief. I’ll carry the experience of encountering these marks with reverence and respect.

The expensive stuff

Yes, there are adaptive devices. Some of them cost a frankly offensive amount of money. My head tracker — a camera you mount on a computer or iPad that reads a laser dot on your forehead and translates it into cursor movement — ran over $1,000. Adaptive gloves that hold brushes and utensils: $100 and up, depending on attachments. Custom reachers: $200 to $500. Mouth sticks: $50 to $100, which is comparatively reasonable and yet still a lot to pay for a stick.

I am grateful for all of it. The technology is genuinely remarkable.

The cheap stuff (my personal hero)

Here’s the thing about quadriplegia: there are a lot of flavors. Some people have no movement below the neck. I can move my arm at the elbow and shoulder, but below my elbow I lack dexterity. This distinction matters enormously for daily life and not at all for what I’m about to tell you.

My best friend is duct tape.

Available everywhere. Every color, design, and size. Inexpensive. I have used it to play wheelchair tennis. I use it to hold brushes, palette knives, and essentially anything else I want to apply to a canvas — secured to whichever part of my arm actually cooperates that day. It holds things down while I’m working. It is dependable, reliable, and $4 at any hardware store.

There was once a TV show where a wife complained her husband had duct tape everywhere. I was sympathetic to the husband until they showed the basement. I don’t go that far. But there’s always a roll nearby when I’m painting.

What this all means

I’ve been paralyzed for three decades. The how of painting is, to me, genuinely boring at this point. It’s just Tuesday. It’s just how I do things.

What I actually want to talk about — what I find interesting, what I hope you find interesting — is the work. The choices. Why I reach for watercolor in one piece and acrylic in another. What I’m after when I put a figure on a musical staff or let a creature wander into frame uninvited. The conversation between an image and its title. The ones that surprise me when they’re done.

That’s the part that isn’t solved by duct tape.

So: now you know how I paint. And I’m genuinely glad you asked — it means you’re paying attention. But the conversation I really want to have is about the work itself. What drew me to a particular figure, a color, a title that took three days to find. The decisions that have nothing to do with how my arm moves and everything to do with what I’m trying to say.

That’s where I’ll be. Come find me there.

Lately, creatures have been appearing in my work. Sometimes monsters. And they’ve started showing up together.

To give some context: after getting a head tracker in 2019, I discovered I could paint digitally on Procreate, and spent time making abstract works.

Then in July 2025, I decided to try analog art — drawing and painting by hand. I’ll write more elsewhere about how I’ve adapted my practice around my quadriplegia, but for now: I started with birds, nature, and people. The foray into creatures has been entirely intuitive. There have been figures above and underground — things resembling birds, fish, eels, snakes.

But yesterday, a dragon appeared. He emerged in the negative space between the other creatures. I had begun filling that space with black paint when I sat back and thought, oh — there’s a dragon. I laughed. In Jungian psychology, dragons represent the unconscious mind. And yes, this piece was made with automatic drawing — though that’s not always how I work. I’ve named it The Dragon’s Welcome Party. I’m curious to see where this takes me.

The Dragon’s Welcome Party copyright Ruth Harrigan 2026

Last evening I was watching a YouTube video about Paul Klee. I discovered that he had a neurodegenerative disorder at the end of his life which affected his dexterity. So he adapted his art to a simpler style However, his art making was extremely prolific and he produced over 1000 pieces of art near the end of his life in one year.

Most of the time when people think of artists with disabilities Frida Kahlo Is mentioned. But I’m discovering that there are many others who found ways to continue to create.