Rocks at Cannon Beach , OR

“Rocks at Cannon Beach, OR in Gouache” is a 6 x 9in. gouache painting on Arches Hot Press Watercolor Paper. I painted this from a photo I took last time Beth and I were there. It was breathtakingly beautiful walking on the beach there at sunset, and the photo doesn't even come close to capturing the feeling. With this painting I tried to get a little bit of the sense of magic that I felt. I’m continuing to learn how to use gouache, and with this one I feel like I’m starting to get a handle on it. My goal with this was to start experimenting with using more drawing with the paint.

This is my painting setup for these 6 x 9 gouache paintings.

For these 6 x 9in. gouache paintings I’m using 7 x 10in. Arches Hot Press Watercolor Paper. I use 1” art tape to cover 1/2” all the way around to give it a nice white boarder. They are then taped to a 9 x 12” hardboard. In my setup I’m using a Sienna Plein Air Pochade box which works great as a tabletop easel. My paints are a combination of Daniel Smith Gouache and Winsor & Newton gouache (that I buy at Blick) and I squeeze some of the paint into a 24 well airtight pallet and have porcelain mixing tray. Everything fits really well into the pochade box, which can be attached to a tripod for plain air painting. My iPad Air works really well for reference photos. The brushes I’m using are from Meeden.