Peter's Sketchbook

[Peter]

Looking good Peter.
Plants can be pretty tricky to simplify. Try to identify the shapes of light and dark, and keep them distinctly separate.
Don't worry about detail at first, you can paint them over the larger masses later. Gouache is opaque when not too watered down, so you can make adjustments if you like.
You don't need to paint in every leaf, only suggest them.
I know that the photo pushes the values apart, but really try to keep them separate; it's very easy to muddy them up and lose any sense of light. Perhaps try go darker than you think you need to?
When you add white to a paint mix, it raises the value, but also lowers the saturation, and shifts it cooler. This makes it hard to achieve a high value, high saturation colour. If you want to have a really high value, high saturation colour, you'll need to change other elements to accommodate. To keep your value relationship then, you may need to lower the value of other elements in the painting, even if it becomes darker than it really is. Your values don't need to be objectively true for the light to read. What you're looking for is how far apart those values are; the relationship.

Also, just by the by, be weary of painting in direct sunlight. The glare on the paper causes issues, but when you bring it out of direct light, you'll be left with a very dark painting.

Doing well, keep it up

Thanks for the image Matthew. :) I remember  blocking in the overall shape of the bush similar to how you demostrated but forgot to break it into light and dark so thanks for pointing that out.

I remember in Gurney's gouache video to got darker than you think and lighter than you think. I remember trying that this time but I think I need to go much lighter/darker than I currently am.

Funnily enough I was painting next to a big bush that was casting alot of shade so as to not get glare on my paper haha, I still need to make that diffuser screen Gurney uses.

I can't remember if I asked last time or not but do you have a list of resouces you used to help you with painting? I'm currently re-reading "color and light" and would like a few more resources.