The Use of Gouache

Gouache is a form of watercolor that uses opaque pigments rather than the usual transparent watercolor pigments. It is thinned with water for applying, with sable- and hog-hair brushes, to white or tinted paper and card and, occasionally, to silk. Honey, starch, or acrylic is sometimes added to retard its quick-drying property.

Gouache paints have the advantages that they dry out almost immediately to a matt finish and, if required, without visible brush marks. These qualities, with the capacities to be washed thinly or applied in thick impasto and a wide colour range that now includes fluorescent and metallic pigments, make the medium particularly suited to preparatory studies for oil and acrylic paintings, offers great versatility to the fine artist and designer and is an unparallelled tool for teaching color theory.

Before transparent water color, gouache or tempera color was used from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance as the favoured medium of the great Masters of the time. It is the medium that produces the suede finish and crisp lines characteristic of many Indian and Islamic miniatures, and it has been used in Western screen and fan decoration and by modern artists such as Rouault, Klee, Dubuffet, and Morris Graves. Even today, they remain the favourite medium of designers and illustrators around.

Materials Required:

• W&N Designers' Gouache / Reeves Gouache
• Watercolour Paper
• Cotman Brush

• See links to artists and sites using gouache [1 2 3 ]
• See link to colour mixing