I’ve been looking for an alternative to oils for some time now. Oil pastels are great, but they don’t work at either low or high temperatures, which makes plein air painting difficult for much of the year.

I picked the brains of a helpful salesperson at Opus Art and Framing in Victoria, B.C. She suggested trying gouache since one can work back into previous layers. Well, I bought a few tubes and started. Talk about a steep learning curve! The gouache doesn’t handle at all like oils. It dries very, very quickly, sometimes between the palette and the painting. And it never gets to a ‘sticky’ point, like oils. It stays paintable forever. However, I’ve been working at it, and I’m rather falling in love with it.

Cowichan Estuary Series

The Cowichan estuary is where the Cowichan and the Koksilah rivers empty into the ocean. Located in a wide valley bounded by the magnificent Mt. Tzouhalem on the east and wooded hills on the west, it is magical place of fields and salt marshes teeming with birdlife. I love to visit it regularly to birdwatch and to simply drink in the amazing, ever-changing beauty of the place.

These pieces are all quite small - sometimes as little as 2 in. X 3 in. Many are done from photos for a few reasons. It was a very hot this summer, and the estuary could be baking by as early as 0800. Earlier than that, the light was wonderful, but the mosquitoes were also very active! As well, the estuary is a fair drive from home, and by the time I hike out to the ‘paintable’ parts, it has taken at least an hour. Finally, because glare can be a trigger for my migraines, I find it hard to stare into the light for any extended period of time. Many times that I tried sketching en plein air, I had to quit. It is often better to take some photos and work from them later. (I also then get time to birdwatch.) Hopefully as the autumn progresses, I’ll be able to get out into the field more often.