MORE evolving pages--gouache comes in handy!

Sometimes our sketches just don't get it for us.  I was at a family birthday party, where I normally sketch, and these little guys just didn't work.  They were too pale and wimpy, Aidan didn't look anything like Aidan, and these sure weren't the best Finn drawing I ever did.  The dog was actually the thing I was happiest with, on this page, and it was still just pale on that tan paper.

HOWEVER.  I normally make my own journals and I just haven't had time--this is the last one I have on hand, and I hated to waste a page!  I didn't want to erase them, either...so days later, I was sitting in the parking lot at the library, waiting while my husband ran in.  The snow cliffs, pushed off the parking lot by the snowplow, were impressive, so I tured to that page and sketched them in, in ink.


Later, back home, I added some gouache, and decided to just let the paint outline the earlier sketches.  It's a weird page, but I like it!  It captures something of the progression of our days, as well as of our journal pages. 

I used a white Gellyroll pen to add the text at lower right that balances the snow at the top...
Gouache (opaque watercolor) is a terrific journaling tool, particularly on toned paper.  Like white colored pencil, it really makes things pop.  That's what I used on this little journal, one of the rare ones I haven't made myself.  (It came from Moon Moth Press on Etsy, and I enjoyed using it, very much.  This one had the interesting green Bugra paper, and some lovely smooth 90 lb. Arches hot press watercolor paper, which was a pleasure to work on.  Check them out!)

Gouache worked rally well in the field, painting my favorite crumbling barn.

Several of our correspondents use gouache--you'll see a lot of it on Roz Stendahl's  pages, for instance.  You can find her blog entries, always a wealth of information, on the subject of gouache, HERE.

I made my own little traveling set by filling an old Winsor & Newton Cotman watercolor set with gouache from tubes.  Let it set up a few days, and I was ready to go!