Friday, February 29, 2008

Before the fog

Well I wasn’t quite as lucky as Mike on Tuesday. I’m still trying to figure out how to use gouache and this sketch is sort of what I saw, and what I wanted to paint in oils before a great big fog bank rolled in killing that great contrast, and my crushing my spirit. I had just finished my block-in, and had a few color notes but I scraped my canvas down anyway. So it goes… I came down the hill to find Bill and Paul packing up their stuff. They had seen the same great light on their way in, only to see it grayed out by the time they got to the site. Needless to say, the minute they drove off, the sun cleared the fog and it was a brand new scene! I hung around with Mike and got another little sketch in too ugly to post though: ) Check out Mike basking in the sun.

4 comments:

dicet said...

wow, Jimmy,

I really love this sketch!

I'm actually impressed. I found it hard to paint on Moleskin sketchbook. The water tends to float a little too much. I always love it for drawing so I was hoping to paint on it too but never had a success.

but the way you painted here is quite impressive. I would love to hear how your experience was on the Moleskin book. Or maybe it isn't moleskin?

great painting regardles..

d

Mike Dutton said...

Dice, if I recall correctly, he has a moleskine, but it isn't the thick paper sketchbook kind (I have one of those and I have the same complaints as you do about floating paint). I think he's actually using the "plain notebook" one with the thin paper. Pretty amazing, huh?

Man Jimmy, I'm glad you have some record of the better part of the morning before "you was robbed". There isn't a single cloud in the picture you took of me, yet only half an hour earlier.... sigh, if only...

Marcos Mateu said...

I really like the sense of atmosphere in your landscapes!

JimmyG said...

Thanks for the comments guys! Dice, this was actually done in a "regular" moleskein (yup, with the thick water resistant paper). This one went down ok, maybe because I was putting on the gouache pretty thick. Maybe because I'm using those Holbien "plasticy" gouaches, I dunno. I do have issues with these books when laying down thin washes of watercolor though. However, if you just "scrub" a little, it seems to break the sheen and then the watercolors will sink in. This was the last page in this little moleskein though, I just started a proper "watercolor paper" landscape format (YAY!) moleskein.