Thursday, June 14, 2018

falling in love with gouache

Italian countryside in Tuscany
gouache on paper
3.5" x 5" sketch journal

I love gouache! I decided to give it another go. I have a very old set of cheap student grade gouache and I hunted it down. I mean cheap! I think I paid $6.00 for a set of 16!  But they still worked. I am trying to remember why I originally bought them. (It will come to me at 3 am.) So I started playing. I used a reference photo from my recent Italy trip.  I love them! I love that they are opaque. That you can layer. That you can lift off. That you can paint impasto or like transparent watercolor.
That in some ways they are like acrylic/oil when you paint with less water. But that once dry, you can fiddle more if you want. I think I have found my favorite medium. I have painted in transparent watercolors for many years and I usually had a tube of white gouache around to add a highlight here and there, but that was my extent of how I used it.

So I ordered a new set today. I think the set I currently have is over 12 years old and several of the tubes are dried out. But I was even able to cut open the dry tubes and re hydrate them. My new set arrives Saturday. (Don't you LOVE Amazon??) The new set is a professional grade paint and I can't wait to see how much better gouache can be.I can't wait.

I wanted to show you my very cool palette. It's an old milk glass egg  holder I found on eBay. How cool is that? It it perfect for any water media. I've decided to dedicate it to my new gouache obsession.


Happy painting!


#gouache  #gouachepainting

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