Rugged Coast

Rugged Coast

Gouache on Paper

This painting is a gouache on paper over pen and ink.  As I've written about before, I will occasionally experiment over earlier paintings.  The Yankee in me hates to throw anything out.  Working in Gouache is still relatively new to me.  I prefer transparent watercolor, but whatever can help me achieve what I'm trying to achieve, I'll give it a try.

I was watching one of James Gurney's video's about painting on location with gouache and he mentioned how gouache tends to dry a little darker than it appears when painting - something I found to be very true.  This painting was also over a sketch in pen in ink with a lot of shading, so that did not help.  None the less, my plan was to go for a stormy scene anyway.

The picture below shows my current method for sketching on location and even studio work where I will work out different ideas in the margins - focusing on different compostions in thumbnail sketches before attempting a finished drawing.   

In this particular instance, there are only a few compositional sketches in the margins.  In other cases, the margins will be filled.   Another advantage of this method is for on location work.  At times, I may see a subject I want to paint, with many other elements that could lead to other paitnings in their own right, or some elements for me to add to other compositions.  It's a great practice that I also find forces me to simplify my compositions.  Initially I pre-drew all the squares for composition.  I've decided against that as there are times I'd like to do portrait orientation compositions as well as landscape compositions. 

I've not reached the point where I'm doing proportial sketches to the size of the final paintings, but that is easy enough to do.