a wee green froggy

The next few pages in my sketchbook journal have been totally random and unfocused. Some quotes from books I've recently read, a silhouette of one of the many herons flying overhead recently . . . and then there's this wee green frog who had decided to live inside the chest where we store charcoal next to our smoker-grill outside. He is actually quite shiny but I painted him in gouache and did not quite capture the shine.

It's been a while since I played with gouache, so I tested the colors in this small palette, decided to cut down to 12 colors whenever the current bits of paint are used up. On the left side, I tried different mixes to find out which to keep and which to get rid of. As much as I love dark blue indigo, it can be replicated by mixing ultramarine with a brown. Helio turquoise is similar to phthalo blue in how it mixes, making it a good cool blue, but cerulean seems best for skies. Gamboge seems a bit too garish to me -- I prefer a more subtle warm yellow like the yellow ochre. Another option might be titanium gold ochre, which I did not have in this palette.

The palette came from Wet Paint years ago, no longer available. In the center, I placed four metal paint pans from Expeditionary Art and a half-pan of white. When the colors are used up, I will eliminate the colors I'm weeding out and use this space to hold a bit of a sponge.