As many of my followers know, I am obsessed with rocks. Always have been. Maybe it was passed on to me by my parents who collected unique rocks and gems and all sorts of cool specimens. They lined the shelves and filled drawers and as a kid I would look through them, mesmerized by their beauty.

Or maybe it was a vicarious appreciation I picked up by watching and listening to my geologist brother talk about rocks over the years. Or the fact that they are an abstracted form of beauty, molded by weather over millennia. Nature’s art.

Either way – since the moment I picked up my first camera years ago, I have always loved taking photos of rocks. And in recent years, painting them.

All of the these were painted with dried gouache in my Portable Painter palette, my favorite way to use gouache outside nowadays. Even in the studio, it is a handy little kit.

Watch how I do it here:

Yes, it gets a little messy, but not as bad as my wet palette did. With my dried gouache palette there is much less maintenance and worry. Simply squeeze in the wet gouache, let it dry for a couple of days, and it’s good to go. Even if it gets REALLY dry after a couple of months of neglect, I can spray it, let the water soak in, and keep using it. Here’s another post about setting up a dried gouache palette and some of my research.

And if you’re interested, I have quite a few tutorials about painting rocks on my Patreon, and even a big class about drawing/painting rocks on Skillshare.

Hiking with my little painting kit is easy, it is extremely compact and I never have to worry about the paint spilling, because it’s dried! And as you can see I’m able to easily layer opaque colors.