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 have come up with a few paintings so far.

Cowichan Estuary Series

These pieces are all quite small - sometimes as little as 2 in. X 7 in. So far, most are also all done from photos. This is for a few reasons. It has been very hot this summer, and the estuary can be baking by as early as 0800. Earlier than that, the light is wonderful, but the mosquitoes are also very active! It’s also 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. The few times that I tried sketching en plein air, I had to quit. Better to take some photos and work from them later. (I also then I get time to birdwatch.) Hopefully as the autumn progresses, I’ll be able to get out into the field more often.