Pine Marten in Gouache

Somebody bought an injured pine marten in yesterday. Sadly it died less than an hour later.I had never seen a pine marten  close up before - they are very attractive animals with big ears and more of a pronounced fox like snout than other members of the weasel family. The central pads on the feet are partly hair covered and they have partially retractable claws possibly an adaption to climbing trees. I was struck by the yellow orange of the bib which I had presumed would be cream or white.

James Gurney (of the highly recommended  gurney journey blog) has just released a dvd on painting in gouache ( opaque watercolour) I was inspired to buy some gouache paints which arrived yesterday. The pine marten painting is my first attempt with this medium .I had thought of gouache as a sort of 'cheats' watercolour because you can correct mistakes and add highlights rather than having to leave the white of the paper.However I found it more difficult to use than I expected. I wasn't even sure how much paint to squeeze out of the tubes and wasted quite a lot . My watercolour technique is to apply washes of paint allowing the pigments to mix on the paper rather than mixing the finally colour on  a palette.This doesn't work with gouache because colours cover and obscure underlying layers rather than mixing or allowing them to glow through .However on the plus side you can start painting broadly then add in more and more detail. I don't think I will ever be tempted to give up my normal watercolours but I can see that gouache would be useful for some subjects expecially those with a lot of detail.