This week’s piece uses toned paper which gives a nice mid tone for the painting. 

I like using a toned ground before starting a piece, but often toned paper is not at a very thick weight. I love to sketch on paper that is on the thick side because more often than not I use some kind of water media. But I would have to plan ahead to first tone the paper and then let it dry before starting a sketch, so white paper it is, most of the time. 

In this piece I probably used black gouache and white fluid acrylic paint. I don’t often use white gouache because I find it is not opaque enough. It also looks like I used some white and black conte.

It’s interesting looking back on sketches and then determining what media was used. I often play with a lot of dry media trying to find something that works well over partially wet paint. This is an endless quest for me because I am always trying to add line with drawing media in my large acrylic paintings. I am not quite satisfied with much of anything except vine charcoal and with that you only have black to choose from. My ultimate fantasy is for some acrylic crayon to be developed that is water soluble but permanent once dry, kind of like the Derwent Inktense drawing sticks but with the same pigments and medium compatibility as the Golden paint products. Maybe someday…