Drawing lessons - 5 - painting the lake on location

Painting the landscape - Wilanow Lake and the small bridge

In lesson 5 we had again an opportunity to paint using gouache. Our teacher showed us the place, we could choose a view, frame it and paint without using the WHITE paint. White color should be reserved wisely on paper, same way as in a typical watercolor aquarell.

After over a month of learning new things I had a plan how to do it right:

1. be quick (from 3 hours there is always about 2:30 for the whole process, and the size is A3)
2. FINISH IT
3. find a right view and frame it some attractive way
4. analyze, measure, check the proportions and most important parts. That was pretty difficult at the beginning because of the water reflection
5. do a quick sketch using the brush and some thinned color 
6. use a lot more of paint than I used to, stop treating it as a true watercolor
7. more contrast, more color

 And here is the result

While I was painting a little girl, about 4, came with her parents and stood next to me watching, what am I  doing. I asked her if she wants to paint, she looked at me, so I gived a brush to her and she started to paint. That dark area in the left down corner is her work. She was happy and their parents were shocked ;)

In the right low corner my teacher also left about 4 zigzags ;) So this piece of art has 3 parents. 



This time finally I got the whole process under control, although two new problems appeared.
First one was the sun shining right on the paper. While setting the easel I saw the sun, but I thought that high trees around gonna cover me soon with a nice shadow, so I started the work.

Water from the lake used for painting

I've been so busy I forgot about it.  I left painting of the water for the end. Suddenly I felt something is wrong and I cant paint, because each stroke gets dry right away. Hey! Wake up! In the middle of the work I realized it's the sun ;), so right away I moved the easel to a shadow, but the water surface suffered :-/.

Underpainting - the initial sketch

A second mistake was the initial sketch. I've made it too fast and it wasn't accurate. Need to remember that the water reflection needs to be extremely well planned to look more real.
Trying to work fast I forgot to watch proportions, so here is the next lesson to learn.

Sure I am not alone

There is a theory, that the best light to view the painting is the same one as it was while painting, so here it is,  finished piece of art below, against the real landscape. It's not a photorealism, but that is also one of my rules at this time.
Unfortunately colors from the camera are not so real as expected.

On the other hand I need to look closely for the right paint, more saturated, clear and for even more contrast.

After the work, tired but happy we went for a walk through the gardens, watching the recently renovated parts of the Wilanow Palace.

So.. am I doing any progress? I hope so, thanks for reading!