I managed to finish this painting without messing it up at all, and that almost never happens. I almost always change something to adapt to a mistake, or remove at least a fingerprint somewhere. Even though I can paint a nice edge, I’m also at heart a clumsy oaf who likes inconveniently bulky sweaters and hates waiting for paint to dry.
Not this time! This is on the very first page of a nice new hardbound sketchbook, and it feels good to start a new book with something that came out really clean-looking. The only thing about this now is to make sure that it doesn’t start an awkward perfectionistic precedent where I tell myself that everything in this sketchbook should be equally nice. Wouldn’t that be cool? Instead, I started the next page this morning swearing and smudging a lot. Luckily, gouache is pretty forgiving.
I’ve decided to dedicate this particular sketchbook to gouache practice with limited color palettes. For this first one, I used six colors that had a wintery feel and mixed soft colors with bright, cool colors. Although I drew and painted this at the beginning of January, I was thinking about Valentines Day flowers while I was painting it. The folk art flowers were satisfying to draw and paint, although I didn’t spiff them up to post today, I think that they could look really nice on some greeting cards or something.