Thinking about the Shapes

I attended a one-day class today where we painted using a drawing supplied by the teacher. Although the teacher wanted us to use our time to apply paint, not draw, we did do a simple value sketch before beginning to paint. Our goal was to focus on the shapes in the space around the figure and then put the transparent watercolor paint into these spaces using a single stroke and a range of values. After painting he used soluble crayon to add line within the painting and along the border.

When I got home I tried the method with gouache on black paper. I used a drawing from July, 2015  as the basis for a quick sketch then tried to follow the plan we used in class.  I will need to keep practicing!

This is a pastel and gouache sketch.