What is gouache? It is likely that you’ve heard about gouache, especially since this medium is enjoying renewed popularity, but do you know what exactly gouache is? And what is it about gouache that is so special?
What is gouache?
Let’s begin with the name – gouache (pronounced: ’gwash’) is a French term describing a type of watercolour paint. Indeed gouache is a water-soluble paint that dries quickly to an opaque, matte finish. Gouache is produced by mixing natural or synthetic pigments with gum Arabic as a binder. When it dries, it has a flat, matt finish. Sometimes white chalk is added to paints to create more body.
What is acrylic gouache?
Acrylic gouache also called “acryla” is a unique type of gouache paint that includes an acrylic binder turning it from water-soluble to waterproof paint. This feature of acrylic gouache attracts artists who love to layer and use vivid colours in their artwork. Unlike the watercolour gouache, it is not possible to reactivate dried acrylic gouache with water, therefore colour blending is only possible while the paint is still wet.
How to use gouache paint?
When painting with gouache, you typically paint from thin to thick, starting with more diluted paint, and gradually adding less and less water to build up multiple layers. If you try to use gouache straight from the tube with a dry brush you can add fantastic textures to your illustrations.
Because gouache is more opaque than watercolour, you don’t need to worry about preserving the white colour of the paper. With gouache, you can paint in white or lighter tones on top of the darker ones.
The important thing to remember is that gouache paint looks darker after it dries, especially if you add white paint to your colour mixture. The opposite is true about the darker hues without white addition that tend to look lighter when dried.
For this reason, to achieve a light colour, it is a good practice to start with white paint and gradually add a small amount of pigment.
Similarly to watercolour, you can reactivate traditional gouache with water. This property is valuable for blending colours or softening the edges. You can also add water to reactivate the paint that had dried on your palette.
Recommended materials
Gouache paint typically comes in tubes. There are many brands of gouache available, both student and professional grade. I don’t want to recommend any particular brand. In my opinion, it is best to buy brands readily available in the country where you live.
If you don’t own gouache already or if you just want to try out a new medium, I always suggest purchasing five colours of good quality professional paint rather than a large student-grade set.
To mix any colour, you will need three primary colours: blue, yellow and red. You will also need black paint to mix dark shades and titanium or permanent white gouache for mixing light tones. Although gouache is generally used as an opaque medium, different colours of gouache paint have varied degrees of transparency.
Professional brands indicate the transparency of their paint on the packaging so pay attention to these markings. Here is an example by Winsor&Newton.
For the paper, I suggest using watercolour or a mixed media paper, cold or hot press but at least 200g/m2. For example, Canson makes good-quality, inexpensive paper.
I use inexpensive watercolour or mixed media brushes with gouache. I recommend brushes with less flexible bristles for someone new to painting. The softer brushes hold more paint and water but are harder to control.
Final thoughts.
As with any new medium, I suggest playing with it. Try to use gouache with more and less water and in combination with other mediums. I love using coloured pencils on top of traditional gouache. The chalky finish provides a smooth surface for the coloured pencils to glide.
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