Oh My Gouache! Playing with Gouache and Ink
After doing the watercolor and ink florals in February, I wanted to continue exploring pen and ink with other media .
With Spring coming, I was ready for flowers and lots of color
I got out my gouache!
Gouache is an Opaque watercolor paint. With traditional watercolor, the paint is transparent allowing the paper or paint underneath to be seen. After drying, both will reactivate when water is added. Gouache can be transparent like watercolors with enough water added so it gives you a lot of flexibility!
Here is a quick comparison
Traditional watercolor is on the left, with Gouache on the right in similar colorways. The Gouache can be transparent like the watercolor but is much more vibrant and opaque in the top of the swatch at full strength.
(Just a quick note, there is also Acrylic Gouache which is a completely different medium. It behaves like acrylics, but dries with a matte finish. It cannot be reactivated once dry. One benefit of Acrylic Gouache is that the paint dries the same color as it looks when wet, which is nice! )
One goal I set this year was to become comfortable with video and have been doing 30 second painting time lapses on Instagram and TikTok every day this year. I am still not thrilled being on camera, (Hello GenX friends) but I like the process videos and it makes me paint something every day. (You can check my Instagram feed for more video)
I really loved mixing the colors and playing with form. The black ink and calligraphy pen, really went on smoothly on the dried gouache and the effect made me so happy. When the month was finished, I had 25 mini 5x7 bouquets full of vibrant color!
How fun are these!
The originals and prints/notecards are up on the site now. If you haven't tried gouache, I would highly recommend it. Winsor & Newton and Holbein make great professional sets and Arteza and Art Philosophy have good quality sets that won't break your budget!
Happy Painting!
