Five tips for painting with Gouache.

Using a shiny postcard as a paint palette for gouache.

Gouache paint is a thick watercolour paint, that is opaque. It is great for flat areas of colour - by flat I mean even, no patchiness, completely covering the surface it is on. 
Here are some tips from my years of painting with gouache, that I hope you will find useful.


1.You don't need a fancy paint palette.
Squeeze out a little blob of paint onto a shiny surface - a printed postcard, or a plate or a paint palette (plastic or ceramic) wet a brush, a size 6 round brush is good for this, and add a little water to the paint, mix with the brush until it is the consistency of single cream. ​

2.Mixing colours - dull down colours by adding a tiny bit of its opposite colour* - just takes the edge of it - a great tip by a visiting lecturer, on my textile design course. I can't remember who it was now, but I owe her for this tip,  and the next one.
* the opposite colour, meaning the colour opposite on the colour wheel - so blue-orange green-red, purple-yellow and always remember colour mixing of paint is different from colour mixing of light.

3.Pre Mix enough paint for large areas
Pre computer days everyone used to paint large areas of colour by hand, flat.
It took a lot of skill to do it, gouache is ideal for this but you had to have enough paint mixed to cover the big areas, so that you can do it in one go. if you let gouache dry out, when you go back to it you can tell, it leaves a sort of tidemark.
 I used to use those tiny one portion jam jars to mix enough colour to finish a piece  of work. The paint will stay workable if you fasten the lids on tightly. You can also put a paint palette in a lidded box, or in a plastic bag if you are not going to leave it too long. A couple of days would be ok.
 
4. Backgrounds.
With gouache you can paint one colour on top of another without it lifting off the base layer, or mixing together - if you have the right consistency. So you can paint your background first, then work on top of  it.
You can also do a background wash of watercolour, make it nice and patchy and then paint gouache on top, so you get a mix of translucent and opaque areas.

Make a background with different patches of colour and paint on top of it
- I have used that one a lot!
I returned to this when I realised I needed a background I could fix if I made mistakes in illustrations, especially for children's books - I always make mistakes! A patchy background is easier to fix than a big expanse of flat colour.
I like techniques that allow you to fix things, so watercolour is not for me - hurray for gouache!

a detail of my Gardening Girls original artwork, showing super patchy background. (available as a mini print in my shop)

5.Owning your mistakes.
Sometimes when things go 'wrong' it looks great!
Have fun playing around with gouache, using different types of brushes, see what works for you, don't be too hung up on perfection.
"oh I see you leave the mistakes in! " an art director once said to me in a meeting...
-erm....I hadn't noticed that I did, but later I realised that this gave a different quality, not too precise and smoothed out, so I fully embrace this one.
​See also: Paint With Gouache part One
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