3 Ways to Paint with Gouache

Good morning, afternoon or evening, wherever you are. I'm Paul Clark and welcome to the studio. Now, what have I got for you lovely lot today? Well, for my recent tutorial on painting with black watercolor paper, loads of you requested a tutorial on using gouache. So, before we start, just a short announcement. There won't be a tutorial for the next two weeks because we're off teaching in La Gomera. In fact, at the time of this video going out, we're actually there at the moment, if that makes sense. Anyway, because of that, I've got three paintings for you today, all using gouache. So, the first one is using it in the traditional watercolor way for this lovely seascape. And the next one is very much in the style of oil paint. So, nice and thick and gooey in that impasto style. And then finally, I'm going to do it in that flat illustration style, very much how they used to paint those railway posters of the 1930s. So, come and join me and we'll paint all three step-by-step together. So, what is gouache? Now, it's often known as opaque watercolor and here's the dictionary definition. A painting technique using opaque watercolor paint in which the pigments are bound with glue and the lighter tones contain white. Well, I'm not sure about the glue, but it does contain most of the ingredients of watercolor, including the pigment, water, the binding agent, usually gum arabic, and in some paints, chalk is added to give the paint extra body. Now, one of the advantages it does have over watercolor is how opaque it is. So, you're able to paint one color on top of another, but that only happens after it's dried. Now, I don't profess to be a gouache technical expert, but before I fell in love with watercolor, I used to do all my work as a commercial illustrator in gouache. So, I do have a fair amount of knowledge when it comes to using it practically. But if you're interested in knowing more about gouache, I would recommend two YouTube channels, the brilliant artist, James Gurney, and another American artist based in Scotland, Sarah Burns. Regarding the paints, most of the big manufacturers have a range of gouache and I've always found that the Winsor & Newton colors to be very reliable. But for this tutorial, I've invested in this eight tube set by Royal Talens. The tubes are slightly bigger at 20 ml, but what I like about these is that as well as a black and white, they also include both a warm and cool set of primaries. So, we should be able to mix up every color in the world. So, I'm making up a palette, especially for this set. Right, for demo number one, I'm going to be using the paint exactly as I would a normal watercolor. So, I'm going to be using this Hanamula 300 pound watercolor block and it's in a cold press finish. Off we go. And as I said, I'm using the gouache as if it's watercolor. So, I'm starting by wetting the complete sheet with clean water. Now, I've done a very basic sketch, but this is going to be one of my spontaneous paintings where I don't really have a plan, but I'm just going to see where the paint takes me. Now, I'm using all the paint with a lot of water. And as I'm just using the three primary colors, there are far too many mixes to list them all. And sometimes I just simply pick up unexpected colors on my brush. Here, I'm diagonally tilting my paper to get some movement in the sky. Dry off with a tissue and lift out some light with a damp brush. Now, the extraordinary thing here is, although the paint has a slightly grainier feel to it, it really does behave very much like traditional watercolor. And I'm able to use all my usual techniques of splattering and dropping in clean water and letting all the colors mix and blend on the paper. Now, if you're having a go at this, don't be afraid to mix your own colors and just experiment with the paint. And this is definitely one that you can try if you don't have any gouache. Just use your watercolors. Now, I think with water, like this little stream here, some vertical bands of color painted in wet in wet always gives the idea of reflected water. Let's stick in an old fence here with my rigger brush. Some thick white gouache here at the end to give a little touch of dazzling light. And we're all done in just under an hour. So next, we're gonna use gouache in a thick oil painting style and try and get that impasto technique great artists like van Gogh use so well. So for this, I'm using the same paper as previous and I'm going to start by knocking back the white paper with a ground color similar to that of yellow ochre. Now, obviously let that totally dry. Next, I'm doing a quick sketch of a river bank. And again, this is a painting I don't actually have any reference for. So we'll just see what happens. So I'm adding a lot of white for these pale colors and it's worth remembering with gouache that most colors will dry a good 10% darker unlike watercolor, which always dries lighter. Now, all my greens are mixed from the two yellows and ultramarine. And again, there are far too many mixes to list them all. And I'm also picking up a lot of random color from my brush anyway. Now, I'm really using a very thick consistency of paint, only adding in a touch of water and sometimes adding in no water at all. And I'm using my big flat brush for this. Here, a bit of smudging with my finger and using my flat brush here, I can pick up a bit of dry brush texture. So a lot of white in this mix to keep it good and opaque and using the side of my flat brush for this foliage effect. Back to my number 12 brush here. Now, things are all looking a bit too green. So I'm adding in a little touch of warmth value with some browns. So for those of you who've crossed over to the dark side and use oils and acrylics, you'll see that many of these techniques are very similar. And this is definitely one of the main advantages in painting with solid body color is something like this light value tree can be painted directly on top. Whereas in watercolor, we would have had to have painted around it, just leaving the space. Now here, I'm just softening some of these reflections with some clean water. Of course, even my gouache paintings have to have a little splattering. Now, some thick white gouache straight from the tube. And this is where I'm trying to get that really thick impasto effect. I have to say that I've not painted this way for absolutely years, but I really enjoyed it. And don't forget, unlike acrylics, you can re-wet your paints when dried and use them again and again. Final touches with my rigger and we're done, great fun. Okay, so for the final tutorial, using gouache as flat body color. So here's my reference that I got from Google Street View and it's down at Robin Hood's Bay in North Yorkshire. Now, I've always loved those old 1930s British Rail posters, advertising resorts to visit by train. The way the artists use big flat blocks of color all gives it that lovely graphic illustrative feel. So I thought we'd have a go at creating one ourselves and gouache being the perfect medium. Okay, so for this tutorial, I'm using some Langton cold press watercolor board, but any decent watercolor paper will do. So here is my pencil drawing and this one is free to download from my website, link in the description below. So let me talk about the best paint consistency for getting a good flat coverage. So it's a very creamy mix and I would say it's about 60% paint, 40% water. So I'm using my number 12 brush and trying to get the most even spread of paint possible. And then when I've blocked in the large areas, I swap to my number six brush. Now this small section is filmed in real time. So you can see how long this tutorial could possibly take. In fact, the whole painting took nearly five hours in total. So a time-lapse is definitely needed. So I'm going to be speeding this up by at least eight times. Now, again, all my colors are mixed from the three primaries plus the white and black. So there's far too many colors to list them all, but of course you can make it your own with any colors you wish. Now, one of the biggest challenges is getting the values right, because it can be quite a surprise seeing the colors drying at least 10 to 15% darker. So in some of the lighter colors, I'm adding in quite a bit more white than you might expect. Now, if you like to work in acrylics, then this project will also work very well. Just try and keep the paint consistently flat as possible. What's this strange red brush I hear you say? It's not one of yours? Don't know, I must've just picked it up by mistake. Now, sometimes a little bit of purple can look really effective in your shadows. Okay, so here is a classic example of misjudging the color when it's dried. This time it's not quite dark enough. So I'm repainting, adding in a little touch more black. Okay, for these cobbles, I want to mix up the colors a bit and also add in some lighter values for interest. Now, for these window frames, I'm using my trusty number three rigger to get those really fine lines. Just these little figures to do now. There we go, all done. All we need to do now is to add a little bit of 1930s graphics. Well, I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did and you give all three of them a go. Even if you haven't got any gouache paints, you can use acrylic or even try it with watercolor. So please don't forget to like, subscribe if you haven't already, leave a comment, even though I won't be able to respond to any of them for at least three weeks as we're sunning it over in La Gomera. Anyway, look forward to seeing you then. Have a great time. Bye for now.