Painting in Transparent Watercolor First

On Wednesday I'll be taking another class from ever-versatile Karen Kappell. I don't think there is anything she can't do. She teaches pastel, paper making, many different watercolor techniques, collage and a lot of other things I probably don't know about! What a gal!!!

So anyway now I am thinking back toward a medium I have only "played with" a little and that is gouache.

What's kind of fun about gouache is that being an opaque medium (like acrylic) it bridges the gap between my two favorite mediums! Maybe.

This seagull "sketch" is a sort of "blocking in" of color and value...I did it very quickly on hot press (Arches 140). Not only is this a somewhat unfamiliar paper for me, but I was using a palette that is not my usual one. Here's why: Karen says "you don't want to contaminate your #1 palette with gouache." Amen. So what I chose is to take out a bag of watercolor tubes that are not my current most favored ones in order to play with them. They do not last forever, I've found out.
What you see here is strictly watercolor at this point. I am blocking in shapes, values and a little work with transparent color. I chose hot press because that is what Donna Zagotta works on (although her hot press is on board). Karen just said to bring regular stretched watercolor on Wednesday.

My idea is to block in first with transparent watercolor. Especially looking at value and composition. Because once I start adding white gouache to the colors, they'll all become opaque and I can layer them on as I please...sort of. Part II is what I am am going to this class for. My first attempts to use gouache were not successful. I'm going to try again!!! I took the photo reference for this on St. George Island on May 17. But gulls are gulls. They could be anywhere. Does anyone know what kind these are? Are they Laughing Gulls? They sure laughed at me all afternoon. Creepy laugh. Hahaha. The working title is: "And Then There Were Three".