I try and break out the gouache regularly for photo studies; it keeps my hand painterly and reminds me to think about values and simplifying the planes and shapes and also it is always a real challenge! I got some new gouache paints this past year, a Himi/Miya jelly gouache set suitable for painting a big pile of studies with, and it’s been a great excuse to paint more. Here’s some photo documentation of my recent work:
This grove was inspired by a trip through the Irish countryside in 2004, where I took approximately 700 film photographs of the wilderness, the architecture, the verdant forests and the magical quality of the light. Using mixed media, I wanted to add something a little more visibly magical to one of those memorable environments.
This gouache painting, 11×14″ in size, features a singular cherubim, all wings and eyes and movement. It was inspired by Madeleine L’Engle’s novel A Wind in the Door and is a tribute to the Rowena Morrill cover illustration.
This illustration, featuring a 5th Edition D&D cleric named Brialma, was painted in gouache on hot press watercolour paper, at about 8 x 10″ in size. The scene is taken from 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons, or DnD, and was inspired by some of our in-play failures to detect or defend our characters against monsters and traps.
This gouache painting is about 7 x 9″ in size, on watercolour paper. It’s an exploration of the geological identity of some parts of Gros Morne National Park, in Newfoundland, Canada. The green serpentine crystals are growing from the granite and serpentinite mix of Gros Morne, specifically the Tablelands. The dark spruce and fir trees are silhouetted against distant hills and rolling fog. This piece is my love letter to that gorgeous park and the sense of magic it has.
