Recently, one of my fellow lawyer-turned-artist Instagrammers, Minjoo Yoon, noted in a post that she initially thought a set of gouache paints that she had bought were watercolors and could not understand why her paintings did not look transparent and luminous. Once she learned that her gouache paints are opaque and not watercolors, she switched to using watercolors. But, she recently got out her gouache paints and gave them a try with wonderful results, in my opinion.
I have been curious about gouache, but hesitant to purchase another set of art supplies that could be quite costly - given my expenses indulging in the wonderful set of Daniel Smith watercolors that I have amassed. But, Minjoo recommended that I check out Minnie Small's YouTube channel and her gouache paintings. Minnie largely uses a limited split primary palette of gouache paints consisting of about 8 Royal Talens colors. So, I researched some watercolor brands and was persuaded by Sade's of www.sadiesavestheday.com review of M. Graham gouache paints - and decided to purchase some hand-picked selections of a split primary palette consisting of these colors:
- Cool Red - Alizarin Crimson
- Warm Red - Pyrrol Red
- Cool Yellow - Hansa Yellow
- Warm Yellow - Gamboge
- Cool Blue - Phthalocyanine Blue
- Warm Blue - Ultramarine Blue
- Titanium White
- Yellow Ochre
- Burnt Sienna
Here are the colors swatched out with my gouache palette set up.
And a color wheel and color chart I created with the gouache paints.
I have enjoyed using gouache to create the following pieces over the last few days. It's very refreshing to be able to continue to work a piece with these opaque paints and I now see why some people think that watercolors, my favorite medium, is so hard to use. You really need to work in a completely different way with watercolors by working light to dark and reserving the whites/highlights in a piece - as well as playing with the transparent and watery nature of the medium. With gouache, I think I need to more fully embrace the opaque nature of the medium and the ability to paint lights over darks. I'm beginning to explore gouache methods of working from a medium tone first, then adding lights and darks; the tiling method of laying shapes of colors together like pieces of a puzzle; and using a grisaille method of putting a dark underlayer down first.
My first gouache portrait - an American hero, Sally Yates
A piece originally done in watercolor that I was satisfied with - but "corrected" with my gouache paints.
A gouache piece with a background done in a gouache wash
A sphynx cat inspired by Sktchy in gouache
What do you think? Have you tried gouache? What are your thoughts on the medium? I would love to hear!