Tag: Strathmore "Vision" paper

Coastal Beach

Where I live there are so many wonderful beaches in our county, to the south, and to the north. Just pop onto Hwy 1 / 101 and off you go! Some are wide and flat, such as in Carlsbad, others are easy to get to even if they have cliffs, and others are quite rugged.

Santa Barbara County has a lot of really great beaches. When I lived there, I had a lot of favorites – Butterfly, Hendry’s, and Goleta Beach. This is a view of Goleta Beach facing north. It is very typical of this section of California – sandy beaches, friable cliffs, Mediterranean vegetation. The coastal range is often right at the ocean’s edge and can create some dramatic views from the shoreline. I really like our beaches!

The biggest challenge here was the water, both waves and the damp water on the sandy shore. Putting people in was not too hard – just a few blobs to make the blobs people shaped. The foreground rocks were a bit of a challenge – I wanted enough detail to make them believable but not too detailed. I am pretty pleased with the cliffs, distant mountains, and sky. Overall, I think this painting turned out pretty good.

Gouache, Strathmore Vision 140# CP paper, 9×12.

Back Country, Amargosa River

The Amargosa River is located in Nevada and California, moving into Death Valley National Park of the Mojave Desert. As a river, it flows freely both above and below ground, providing much needed water in an otherwise dry climate. Because of it, there are many rare and unusual plants and animals, some found nowhere else in the world. It is managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to conserve it . . .

This is another gouache painting. I wanted to capture the contrast of the river basin to the mountains it runs through, as well as illustrate the wonderful colors you can see in a desert or riparian area. Dry, rocky mountains, flat areas from flash floods and trails, the occasional tree, low-growing plants adapted to a dry environment. Plant colors are generally pale – sage green being a dominant one as well as bright yellow flowers. Dry air lets you see for miles into the distance and at times you wonder if you will ever see a cloud in the endless blue sky.

Gouache, Strathmore Vision 9×10 140# CP paper.

Spring Orchard

I had to miss my oil painting class yesterday as I had some things to do and some workmen to work. I had planned to use gouache while I waited. The workmen came, but I didn’t get around to painting at all. This afternoon I made up for my missed paint time. Spring is nearly here, so Spring it is!

As with any medium, if I have not used it for awhile, I need to get used to it again. As I was playing and it was lying around, I picked up my pad of Strathmore Vision watercolor paper. This is not a great paper for watercolor, but I love it for pen and ink. Why not gouache?

What I like about gouache is that it is opaque, yet diluted it becomes transparent – or certainly thin enough to show the colors beneath it. I painted with an angle brush and thin paint, laying in colors. Details were done with a small, pointed round. Additionally, as this is artists’ gouache and non-acrylic, the colors can be re-wet, and thus some fun blending can happen. I used all my little tricks to refresh my gouache memory, and here we are.

Gouache, Strathmore Vision paper, 9×12.

Windbreak

California is losing its farmland – development of tract homes played a big part in the loss of arable land. Now it’s floods and drought. But in a more perfect world, eucalyptus trees were planted between fields to keep the damage from wind – erosion – down, especially when the east winds blew.

Here, more working with broad swaths of similar colors laid out in a wash. I did this one in a few layers. The first thing I did was the sky and the tree trunks. From there, a pale layer of varying color for the tree foliage, and second and third layers of the same, increasing in darkness. At the end, the field and track and a bit of stuff in the distance. Branches in both dark paint and in gouache.

I have been using Strathmore “Vision” 140# paper for this and other studies, and it is not too bad! Reasonably priced, and it seems to be holding up quite well to wetness and working. I haven’t tried larger sheets, but this may make me interested for practice.