Gouache - First Impressions.

My first love is illustration.  Gouache has long been a much loved medium among illustrators, I can't think why I haven't tried it before.  I've always used white gouache for those occasions when I've 'lost' the white bits whilst painting in watercolour.  A few years back, when asked for a Christmas list, I put Windsor & Newton Designer Gouache on my list.  What I got, from a grandson, bless him, was a cheap set of gouache from a maker I hadn't heard of.  They were useless, but sufficient to put me off trying gouache. I did a little research into the various makes, we all know it's wise to buy the best you can, but I'm not in the selling game, I just do it for fun...so I merely wanted something that will give fairly decent results. I found several sites where comparisons were being made, they all seemed to say much the same thing, demonstrating with their colour charts where they'd painted strokes across black in the various colours.  One chap came up with his top 3 gouache.  In third place was Windsor & Newton Designer Gouache, the writer said they would be in top place, but some of their colours had problems in the lightfastness area.  He didn't say which.  In second place was Holbein Artists Gouache.  But these are in 5 mil tubes.  5 mil !!!  Come on...are they having a joke?  He said a little went a long way.  It would flipping well have to!  His top place went to Schmincke Horadam Gouache.  These cost about £10 a 14 mil tube. So I looked at mid-range stuff.  One person compared Reeves and Arteza Gouache.  (I have a soft spot for Reeves.  I was using a set of Reeves watercolours in a small tin box costing about £6 for many years, I still have some of those paintings and the colours look good.)  The lady reviewing Reeves said it was OK but they used white to make their colours opaque, this could lead to problems in colour mixing.  The Arteza brand did not use white in their colours, she preferred them to the Reeves.  As a try-out they were good value at 24 colours for about £18.  On the downside, she said there was no ultramarine, and too many very similar earth colours.  All that said, she made the point that few artists stick to one brand...she has a large mix of gouache.  She does use a few Reeves colours which are excellent (didn't name them), and several of the Arteza range as well. I opted for Windsor & Newton at around £5 a 14 mil tube. I made a sketch before I looked up any 'how to' videos.  My thinking being I like to have some idea how they behave before looking at instructional stuff.  Believing that would help me understand better. I did this pic, largely using my watercolour technique...you rapidly find out they are very different. Then I did look at some instructional vids.  A mixed bunch, some useless, some helpful. Then I did this...I'd used green over the whole face as an underpainting (can't do that with watercolour)...I've left the chin as it was.  Of course, the big difference to watercolour is that you can paint light over dark.   To me it's a bit like using acrylic...although I must own up that I haven't done much in acrylics.  The under colour remains active in gouache when dry, it doesn't in acrylic.  But the process  of painting seemed similar. I'm presently engaged in painting six sketches of girls faces...this to get me going artwise, my output has been a bit hit and miss during lockdown.  When I've done all six I'll put them in the gallery.  Here's one...I try slightly different ways to paint them. On a practical side, I keep unused gouache on my palette.  Spraying it with water reactives it...this works well.  I add new paint as necessary.  In the instructional stuff there were two schools of thought on this...one as I've just described, and the other...always use new paint.  (There's no 'always' in art, using the reactivated gouache works for me). It seems that light colours dry slightly darker, and dark colours slightly lighter.  Just a case getting used to it.  Watercolours dry differently, and I'm used to that. So far I've only done sketches in a 300gsm sketchbook.  At some point I need to do a 'full' painting. I'm impressed with Gouache...in fact it's revitalised my flagging enthusiasm.  I'll let you know how I get on.

Robert, on the gouache and white thing...I'm quoting from a woman talking in general about gouache, and about affordable gouache in particular. (Reeves and Arteza).  She said gouache is pigment and binder, and in some colours the addition of white.  Cheaper brands use fillers and glycerine plus white in everything...the white to increase opacity.  This can cause problems.  She mentioned a 'sky blue' in Arteza, a colour where the blue and white are already mixed.  A splendid colour, she said, but if you wanted to add a darker blue to it and mixed a black with the sky blue...you'd get a gray.  (Black not a good choice, but she was making a point).  She doesn't like white in everything. The W & N give info on the tube (maybe all makers do).  Yellow Ochre says pigment PY42, Lightfastness/soldite a la lumiere.  Other colours have different numbers.  If I had a technical type of mind, I'd follow it up...but all I want to know is...'is it any good.' The tech side isn't really my thing...what I got from it was 'buy better stuff.'..so I chose W &N, but baulked at the Horadam gouache at £10 a tube.

John, I take your point about gouache being easily spoilt, but I'm used to that with my watercolour.  I did look at Caran D Ache, I prefer pan to tubes.  Unfortunately, it seems they only sell complete sets.  Some reviews I read rated them but said some their opacity was not as good as W & N and others.  I've since read elsewhere their opacity is good, and that they dry more opaque than you expect.  (??)  So in the end I went with W & N.  As I like gouache so much, I suspect that in a few months I'll be needing more.  I'll give Caran D Ache a go, I think.  Your stuff looks great with it.

Thank you CJ.  I too have no problems about using white and black.  Some artists don't use black, mixing something that looks like black...I'm quite happy using black straight out of the tube.  I do get confused over whites.  Robert recommends Titanium White.  Windsor & Newton's website lists only Zinc White or Permanent White...I've gone for the permanent white.  Paynes Grey is a colour that seems to divide people, on decent paper I'm happy to use it...often as an underpainting.  For my purposes, it works quite well.

Yes, the Windsor permanent white is excellent.   Robert, I know exactly what you mean by overuse of white gouache with watercolour.  Ages ago I tried masking paint, didn't like it, and now rely on leaving white space or using gouache.  Sometimes it's far too finicky to mask ALL areas of white anyway.  But I've overdone the gouache quite a few times. As for experimenting, for me every picture has some degree of experimentation...I'm sure others feel the same way.  They often go wrong of course.  No big deal.  It's just a bit of paper wasted and a lesson learned (hopefully).  Here's a gouache experiment that went wrong, and I've given up on it for now... I was trying underpainting with gouache.  This is something I do all the time in watercolour.  Here I was going for a really old man, with pale, almost ghost-like, skin.  I tried a blue underpainting for the shadows.  You can see elements of it on the man's ears and neck.  I let it dry, and then tried glazing my pale skin colour over it.  Gouache is probably not at the top of the list for glazing...but I was experimenting.  As I continued, things got worse.  So I gave up.  I learned it's probably best to get my effect another way.  Dark over light, not a light glaze over dark as here.  I often get away with this in watercolour, but I'm pushing my luck with gouache.  I could probably paint areas out with a slightly blue white, and carry on.  But no, I'd rather simply start again.   I'll just keep using it.  Gouache seems quite an accommodating medium.