I haven’t really painted anything in a couple of days, on the road, busy redefining literacy assessment in Georgia, that kind of thing, but I thought I’d post a little of what I’ve been doing.

This is a little sketch I did on the backside of a series of little tiny sketches which would be too small even to photograph unless I actually used the camera instead of my iPhone, and I’m too lazy for that.

The goal was do a hardcore study of shadows and mass, and in that I think it’s successful. I had intended to make this a more complex thing, but I kind of like it as it stands.

One reason I like gouache as a medium is that it can be blended even after drying. (It can also be used on the palette after drying; very economical.) In this case, I could go back in with shadows and reblend the edges between light and dark, shifting the edges to one side or the other.

My next study will be to see if I can get even half the reflections right. One thing I do realize is that the “white” of the mug itself has to be gray, because otherwise the hotspots of the reflected lights have nowhere to go. My intention is to layer and layer and layer the paint, probably working in fresh stuff from the tubes in a fairly thickish, flat manner, just keep adding and correcting what I see until I’m happy that I’m nearly correct in my observations and the translation of same.