Another weekend excursion joining the SF Sketchers. Honestly I would have never noticed the lake (Stow Lake) and boathouse had the meetup not taken place there. Since I usually bike through the park, I never paid attention to this lake off the main road.
Since I arrived very close to the end time of the meetup (insert blame on lack of motivation on weekend and SF traffic) I quickly got to work as soon as I parked my car. This little snippet is probably only a few steps away from my car, but it had a nice shade and a perfect view to test out adding gouache to watercolor. Ever since I saw James Gurney's video on drawing a water scene with gouache, I was hoping to attempt it myself. The combination of blue highlight, greenish refection in the distance (transparent), and the closer warm shadows from the trees (somewhat opaque) really makes a perfect testing ground.
I'd say the drawing turned out much better than I thought, given I had very limited time. The opacity really added body to the painting and put more weight to the shadow area.
After finishing the show-and-tell session, I followed what everyone else had drawn and headed for the stone bridge. The green of the water really stood out, so I tried to bring it out as much as possible. The dark areas with added gouache really bring out the contrast with the bright green. Several boats/paddleboats made their way through the bridge, so I put two in also ;P
The Chinese Pavilion is the centerpiece of Stow Lake, situated on the island. I decided not to get too close to the pavilion (mostly because I was tired and hungry and still munching on my boathouse hotdog) and drew it from across the lake. The sunlight was shining at a nice angle on the roof of the pavilion, and gouache was able to save the day again by allowing me to add a few white beams back to the pavilion~
