Materials

Paint 

Foreground
Phthalo Blue
Alizarin Crimson (perm)
Quinacridone GoldPaint 

Sky
Indigo
White Gouache

Brushes
1” Flat Brush
1” Bristle Brush
3” Hake Brush
#2 Rigger Brush

Paper
1/4 sheet
Cold Pressed
Old Towel to wipe
your brushes on

© john lovett MMVIII

Indigo and White Gouache

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The beauty of this type of sky is the unpredictable interaction of the Indigo watercolor and White Gouache. You will have a fair amount of control over where the two pigments merge, but the amount of bleeding, feathering and merging depends, to a large extent, on the amount of moisture present. The trick is to intervene just enough to keep things under control

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Tips

• Bleeding edges
  Use your dry Hake brush to make adjustments to the Gouache but be sure to leave areas untouched so they bleed slowly into one another. This is where you will get those beautiful feathery bleed marks.

• Darker towards the horizon
  Try and keep the Indigo darker at the bottom of the sky. This will help pick up the lights in your centre of interest.

• Hake Brush
  Have an old towel handy to keep your hake brush as dry as possible when you feather out the sky

• Substitute Colors
  Prussian or Windsor blue can be used if you don’t have Phthalo Blue. Indian Yellow can be used in place of Quinacridone Gold

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