Trying Gouache Painting for the First Time

Since I’ve been using oils for a while now, I thought I’d give Gouache a try. I love how the colors are beautifully bold and flat. For oils, I usually start dark to light and now I'm practicing going from light to dark colors. Gouache also dries faster than oils, but it's a happy medium between acrylic and watercolor. So far, it's been really fun and interesting to get used to a new medium.

I think I've quickly found that Gouache is perfect for simple, vibrant strokes. And with very few strokes, you can create something really quite cute. I'm not a fan of the shading results I've been getting so far, but that could be me and not the paints. I've been altering between adding water to diffuse the color or adding white or black to keep my colors opaque.

Using Winsor & Newton Designers Gouache. You can purchase at your local art store or here.

I've also found it's kind of nice to start with smaller sheets of paper to make trying something new seem more approachable. For me, I love trying new things, but it's also important for me to eventually finish. The paper I'm using is standard watercolor paper stock that I've just cut into pieces.

My husband has been sweet enough to let me cover our apartment walls with paintings and our photos, but I'm worried we're running out of space! I'm slowly covering up our fridge with Gouache paintings, but after then, I'm going to need to figure out some form of storage. 

Onwards to more practice!