ArtBistro

How To >> Browse Articles >> 2-Dimensional Art Materials

All About Gouache

Many artists experience gouache for the first time in a color theory or design class, not exactly the place to unlock the hidden creative potential of a medium. After finishing the last exercise in split-complementary triadic color composition or home-value calculation against a gray scale, a lot of artists swear off gouache for life. Too bad, because gouache can offer so much more than just flat color.

The term Gouache refers to a category of paint, an opaque watercolor. However, not all gouache colors are equally opaque; in fact, some are perfectly transparent. The important distinction between gouache and traditional watercolor is how opacity is a central issue in color mixtures. The gouache painter depends on mixing directly with white paint to create each hue, as opposed to the traditional watercolorist’s conservative use of the white of the paper as the source of all whites in the picture created from layers of completely transparent paint. The difference is that where the surface of watercolor is determined by the texture of the paper, gouache imparts its own weight and surface to the painting, ranging from thick and chalky to velvety smooth.

Gouache has a long tradition of use in graphic arts and illustration, due to its lack of reflective properties and tendency to photograph well. For this reason, colors analogous to those used in the publishing industry have been included by most gouache manufacturers despite sometimes less than complete lightfastness. For creating permanent art objects, painters should choose colors of the highest lightfastness rating as indicated on the package.

A good approach to painting in gouache is to work from light to dark. Lay in the very lightest colors first, gradually working toward darks, applying black line work last. Painting over dark colors with lighter ones is difficult, because the lower layers soften and show through the top ones (although Utrecht Workable Fixative can help seal between layers). Holbein Acryla Gouache is an exception to this tendency, however, as the traditional gum arabic binder is replaced by acrylic polymer emulsion, which seals itself each layer.

Gouache can be intermixed with watercolor, offering an impressively broad palette completely portable and immediate in a way that more elaborate paints can’t match. Gouache is as ideal as a sketch medium for “one-shot” paintings as it is for creating delicate, fully-realized works of art.

See the Selection of Gouache from our Online Store

Paper Terminology Glossary

---