Illustration Friday: Time

I was playing around with gouache paints and fallen leaves for Illustration Friday, this week’s topic for which is “Time”. For writing-related reasons, I’ve been thinking on time passing by people sleeping in flowers and forests and leaves – Sleeping Beauties, Rip Van Winkles and lost children covered up by birds.

Here is my housemate Aimee obligingly posing for reference photos while I stand on the coffee-table.

I do like the textures of gouache, although I am still getting used to how dark it dries. I’d like to try this again and play with tones more – I’ve seen a few monochromatic pieces recently which glow.

I’ve never painted frequently enough to be really familiar and confident with it, so I get frustrated when I force myself not to use lines, and then am surprised by the way a bit of rough paint in the right place can unexpectedly work. Just the way a rough pen line can still get a message across.

My reward for the next stage of editing the Large Amorphous Manuscript may be a painting class.

Here is the other little study.