This was a great class in painting desert landscapes and rock formations in gouache. I live in Arizona, so I was excited to learn about capturing the rocks and desert lighting. I worked in jelly gouache and my watercolor sketchbook. I limited my palette to 5 colors and white/black and used the same colors for both paintings.

I have tons of photos of the desert and rock formations around where I live and I'm excited to try painting some of these scenes now that I have a better idea of how to go about it.

This first one I found the reference from class on Unsplash and followed that while using the techniques and steps that Sarah explains. It's a bit different than the class demo; I went a little more literal with the photo, but I'm pretty happy with the result.

This second one is an imaginary landscape, as demonstrated in the class. I really struggle with painting from imagination, and so I was excited to challenge myself a bit with this part of the demo.

I thought I was done here, but I couldn't resist going back and painting two more projects. This is the Mesa Arch again, but this time I followed the demo painting more closely.

And I finished off with the Arches National Park painting.