I needed to make this sketch first before making a bigger drawing; it’s like pre-heating the oven when baking.

I wanted to try the Kuretake Gansai Tambi on large format landscape drawings. I needed to coax this watercolor so it could at least cooperate with me, especially when doing washes. So it seems like this watercolor can do washes on watercolor paper with thickness of 200 gsm or less. Anything higher than that would make the colors sit still. The sketch of the Stabilo Boss and Pigma Micron was done on a smoother and thinner paper so I was able to spread the color and make it behave like an ordinary watercolor.

Now with on this Canson 200 gsm cold press side of the paper, I could do a bit of wash but it’s still a bit harder to spread and blend the colors.

I’m still thinking if I should ink this or gamble using the #0 brush to add details. The background trees are still flat and I need to add depth after this dries up. I need to relearn how to add depth to this without having to resort to thicker application of watercolor and make it behave like gouache. Either I layer this with other colors or I use ink.

This is how it would look like if I ink it:

I’m kinda feeling it but this may end up looking like an illustration. Whatever.

At least I feel better now that I have used colors again.

I want to achieve this level of mastery of watercolor:

For me to be able to do that, I need to draw every night.

I need to sleep first. I’ll add details and depth tomorrow after work.