Lately I’ve seen some of my friends sketching on brown craft paper and thought I would give it a try. Watercolor seems to just soak into the paper, creating only muddy color, so I used gouache paint. Gouache is water based, but it is opaque and doesn’t soak into the paper like watercolor. I started with black pen, then followed with paint. Some of the lines get colored over, unlike watercolor. Because I was a bit timid with this new technique, I used white and black paint alone for the first sketch.
White and black gouache with pen and ink on craft paper
This was so much fun, I decided to add color to the next sketch and used a full spread of two pages.
Painting with gouache was much easier than I thought, but sketching on watercolor paper is still my favorite.
Mushrooms growing in our lawn
Creating in Alaska 
All are very nice sketches. Love the shine in the metal cup; love the layout on the brown paper; and great mushrooms with the blue in them 🙂
Susan, thank you for cheering me on! I sometimes forget to post my sketches on here after posting them on Facebook. I’ll try to do better since it is two different groups. You happen to be in both:)
Last Thanksgiving, I went mushroom picking with family and was left with one of my favorite holiday memories. Thanks for sharing that mushroom painting. It captures the joy of that memory for me!
“Healthy Artist” thank you for your kind comment! How nice for you to have this memory and I’m glad to have reminded you of such a special time.
Love the fireweed and yarrow. Lovely.
Thank you, Afternoon Artist! The plants actually glow in the sunshine. I’m glad you like them.