With rising temps hitting the 90s lately, I've dedicated some time to a new project in the studio. I headed out to my local art store and bought a loose sheet of Arches 140lb rough paper, then broke it down into a stack of 5x7"s to hash out some ideas in gouache. The motif is the Pacific Northwest, since I had such a fabulous trip sightseeing up the coast.
I was excited to try toning the paper with a mid tone, and a purpleish hue was what I was getting from the pictures I took. I thought it would help with the mid-day feel and lend almost a retro quality to the finished piece. To start, I mixed azo orange, imperial purple, and buff titanium on my watercolor palette. I applied a wash, let the paper completely dry, then went back in to add my big shapes with the same mix.
As this layout fully dried, I opened my gouache palette and switched over to my gouache-only brushes. I keep these separate from my watercolor brushes because gouache is typically a thicker mix and may damage my more delicate watercolor brushes.
The same piece of paper with gouache overlaid. The purple underpainting came through the finished painting with surprising glimmers of peach. I was delighted to see the warmth sparkle through! So delighted, in fact, that I tried a similar composition of the same rock from a different vantage point.
This time, I toned the paper with a warmer purple, and sketched the rock formations close together. Rearranging a photo or live scene to achieve a better composition is its own set of skills, which I practice often in my sketchbook.
I used a combo of whatever colors were on my palette at the time, the warmer purple coming through to make the colors cohesive.