For the past few years I have spent countless hours painting with watercolors trying to master them. Ive been expanding my color palette, watching tutorials, reading reviews on brands of brushes/journals/paint and while I wont say my days of watercolor are over, I have found myself pulled more and more towards other mediums. I dream of being able to paint massive oil paintings of mountains. However, oil feels so intimidating and acrylic slightly uninspiring (that may change in the future) and that is how I became intrigued by gouache.
Impossible to spell correctly without autocorrect yet SO MUCH FUN to play with. No more days of being halfway through a painting only to realize I've overworked one area and just praying when i finish it won't be noticeable. This is one forgiving medium. Make a mistake? Just layer again, maybe add some zinc white in the mix to increase the opacity. The opacity is what is so appealing to me. That and the ability to keep colors vivid all while letting myself go a little more abstract with my painting. I am very much a realist when it comes to my art and it's something I want to branch out from. Gouache so far is letting me do that. I just paint. Sure I use my reference photos but I'm not too concerned about each line or tree or even mountain in the distance because if it doesn’t look quite right I can edit it, and if it's messy it actually may look more beautiful.
Have I convinced you yet to try gouache? If I have then let me share some learnings so far.
Be patient. I tried to paint my first paintings like they were watercolors and they are but aren't. Yes you can use water to dilute these paints and reactivate them, but keeping them thick is where the fun is. Unlike watercolor where you have to work light to dark, with gouache you work thin to thick. Paint a nice diluted sky or even water color it, but then keep layering and thickening your paint as you go. I found that if I let a layer dry completely then add that same color again it can really give me that creamy look I am going for. But this requires time and patience to keep the layers coming and letting them fully dry between.
Buy nice gouache. I guess I can’t fully speak to what will happen if you buy cheap gouache but I read and watched tons of youtubes/blogs and one of the common pieces of advice I kept seeing was spend the money, get the good stuff. Windsor and Newton Designer Gouache seems to be a crowd favorite.
You can mix a lot of colors from the primaries. A cool red, cool yellow, cool blue and a warm red, warm yellow, warm blue alongside a black and white will get you far. I paint a lot of landscapes and so I opted to get a green, a cool brown and a warm brown too. Starting out Im not sure i needed all of these but they have been helpful already. The one color I didnt buy originally was a cool blue and ultimately went out one day solely to find one at the local art store because I just couldn’t mix the right blue from phlatho blue I had.
Find a palette that can stay wet. I love this one I got on amazon. Even in the dry air of Colorado this thing will stay wet when I leave and come back to it. It helps keep the paints really workable. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0949SL8HR?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details
Lemon yellow is more opaque than the yellow that comes with the windsor and newton designer set.
Zinc white is a mixing white, while permanent white is a true opaque white that will give you those whites you really want on top of your painting. For example splattered snow or stars.
Work thin to thick as opposed to light to dark. Im still trying to fully understand this one but this is advice Ive heard and its a different way to look at layering compared to watercolor. Lighter thicker paint actually looks really amazing on darker layers with gouache!
I hope these tips above help inspire anyone considering breaking into gouache. Im still very new with this funky medium but excited for where it can take me. I would love to hear any advice y’all have or thoughts on gouache!
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