What actually is Gouache? I will explain to you in this blog! Great to be blogging again! I'm keeping the blogging spirit up. I have wanted to write a blog about goauche for a long time. I have more of those topics that have been on my list for a very long time, so new blogs and videos will be online in the coming weeks!
How do you pronounce this impossible word?
Gouache is pronounced 'gwosh'. Of course you can add a nice French touch ;). Perhaps a fun fact to know: the word comes from 'guazza', an oil painting technique that was previously used to make cheaper and fresh paintings. For the experts: lean oil paint on tempera that produced a matte result.
What is gouache?
Gouache is an opaque watercolor and is often called the baby of watercolor and acrylic paint. Gouache the best in the enormous saturation of colors. The paint, like good watercolor paint, consists largely of pigments. Only opaque pigments are used for gouache. Adding more water to the paint makes the paint more transparent. Gouache is almost always used on paper, as it does not adhere well to other surfaces.
Gouache vs gouache?
Gouache and gouache are the same type of paint. The terms are used to indicate the difference in quality. Just like with watercolor paint and watercolor, which is actually the same, watercolor is the quality version and watercolor the more budget version. Unlike watercolor paint, gouache is opaque.
What is gouache made of?
The basis of gouache often consists of pigments and dextrin (potato starch) or possibly a gum agent such as gum arabic. Pigments and just a little dextrin or gum make the paint liquid enough to use as paint. Otherwise you would only have some kind of powder in the tube. The dextrin is also a glue that allows the paint to 'stick' to the paper.
How to recognize a good quality gouache?
In the past, watercolor was mixed with white gouache so that the paint became opaque. You can now recognize good gouache because no opaque white paint is added to it. The best Gouache is therefore not mixed with a white substance but consists of good quality opaque pigments. A good Gouache is therefore made as pure as possible. The more pigments, the better. Holbein is known for adding very little to the pigments. This makes Holbein gouache slightly less opaque than other gouache brands, but the colors of the gouache are incredibly bright because of that!
Shopperdeshop
Sorry, I can't resist ;): I sell several types of Gouache, including this one from Holbein, Talens, Daniel Smith, and Winsor & Newton Designers Gouache. You will probably see immediately: I am indeed only selling the more expensive Gouache because I believe it's better to buy a few better tubes than a large set of colors for the same price of lesser quality. Of course I can't look at your wallet, but I'd rather buy 5 tubes of good quality than 20 colors of mediocre quality :). With those five tubes you can mix a lot of colors <3.
How do you use gouache?
Gouache is itself an opaque paint. Adding more water makes the paint more transparent. I will tell you exactly how to use the paint in a next blog, or maybe even a video!
Do you want to know something specific about Gouache? Let me know in the comments and I will include it in the next blog!
Love,
Judith
