Today I put aside my normal Nicolaides exercise and Fandom Fitness drawing for a relaxing day of art.
What I did work on was a painting that I’ve been thinking about for a week.
I had the pleasure of experiencing the moon set early one morning about a week ago and I’ve wanted to do a painting of it.
Here are the photos I took.
Originally I thought of doing this painting in oil, but after reading the next exercise in The Natural Way to Draw I knew I needed to get my Gouache paints out. The next exercise is actually with watercolor, but I don’t have any. I figure gouache would be good enough for now.
Moon Painting in Gouache
There were two things I wanted achieve with this painting.
- Achieve harmony in the blues similar to the photographs.
- Extreme contrast between the moon and its reflection against the water and sky.
The harmony of the be is there, but no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get the intensity that I wanted in the reflection and moon. The problem could have been the low quality gouache paints I was using (Lukas set). Or, this is the limit of paint versus real light.
Daily Composition
Today was a relaxing day of art but I have committed to my daily compositions, so I got it done.
This is the super loud mower, through my kitchen window, that was cutting the grass and preventing me from taking my afternoon nap on time. The actual window has blinds over it, I omitted those.
What went well?
Relaxing art day! Some days, it’s good to just relax and create.
What didn’t go so well?
I was having some issues with energy today, but I recognized that and adjusted my schedule accordingly.
What did I learn and/or how can I do better?
When painting in Gouache you need to be super careful with layering paint. Wait till the bottom layer drys then place the top layer of paint with subtle care.
