Black Gouache

"Orchids"
gouache and colored pencil
8" x 14"

I like the dramatic look that a black background can give a drawing or painting. One of the drawbacks to colored pencil, though, is the time and effort that goes into creating a really dark background. This is my first effort at using gouache and colored pencil together. I first drew my composition in lightly with graphite. Then I painted the background with black gouache. Finally, I used colored pencil to "paint" in the orchids. This was done on illustration board. I really liked the richness that the gouache gave to the black background and the time-saving. (It went much, much faster than colored pencil would have.) The only thing that I didn't like was trying to draw with colored pencil on the illustration board. It just didn't handle as well as the Stonehenge paper that I'm accustomed to drawing on. Next time, I might just get brave enough to do the entire painting in gouache...