I’ve been painting in gouache for over 12 years and even today it continues to surprise me. I was surprised at how much I liked gouache even from the beginning when I used it for the first time during a painting course in college. It was smooth and opaque, similar to oils, but I could use water to clean up instead of harsh chemicals such as turpentine. It dried quickly like acrylic but had a gorgeous matt finish. Best of all, it was easy to control and I could get the outcome I wanted with relative ease. It combined all of the things I liked about other media while leaving out the ones I didn’t much care for. That isn’t to say that gouache doesn’t have its own quirks, it very much does! But once you understand a few general rules, gouache becomes much easier to work with. Let’s cover some of its unique traits and talk about what you might need to get started.
What is gouache?
Gouache is an opaque water-based paint. It’s comprised of natural or synthetic pigments, you might want to avoid paint with honey as an ingredient if you don’t want to attract the bees!
