Painting a landscape in gouache 1

Gouache is one of my favourite mediums, particularly for painting out of doors. It dries rapidly, yet is still water soluble if you wish to go back into it and make alterations. It has a soft chalky quality about it , French chalk having been added to the pigments in their production.
As a result , it is a very forgiving medium allowing one to proceed with the minimum of planning, to easily make amendments and to paint light over dark.
In this particular painting I am working on Bockingford watercolour board and using Winsor and Newton designers gouache.

With a large hog’s hair brush I have very rapidly blocked in the general composition, the sweep of the river, the distant hills and indicated the position of the trees in the foreground. It has taken around 30 minutes for this initial stage of the painting.