Leisure Painter - UK (2019 - Summer)

http://www.painters-online.co.uk SUMMER 2019 59

G

ouache is a lovely medium

with which to work and has

a surprisingly long history.

It is very similar in use and look to

egg tempera and casein. Egg tempera’s

pigments are bound with egg yolk as

you might expect, whereas casein is

precipitated from milk. The binder is

made by dissolving the resulting casein

in an alkaline, usually lime, ammonium

carbonate or borax, which is then added

to the pigments. There are very subtle

differences in these three media, but

probably the most important difference

is that, over a short period of time,

both casein and egg tempera becomes

waterproof. Gouache does not become

waterproof when dry so needs mounting

and framing under glass in the same

way as you would with watercolour. The

advantage of this is that the paint can

be re-activated by dampening, allowing

for more subtle blending techniques.

The binder used in the manufacture

of gouache is gum arabic, the same

as in watercolour, the major areas of

difference being that the particles of

pigment in gouache are larger than

those in watercolour and there is

significantly more pigment in gouache.

This, coupled with the addition of an

extender, usually precipitated chalk,

helps to make the paint much

more opaque.

Characteristics

Gouache dries to a lovely matt,

velvet-like surface and, as it is an

opaque medium, has excellent

properties for reproduction, whereas

watercolour – being a transparent

medium – is prone to losing some

of the subtleties in reproduction.

Gouache has been the favoured

medium of illustrators, comic

illustrators, animators and designers,

indeed gouache has become known

as Designer’s Gouache.

The surface of a gouache painting

makes it suitable for various mixed-

media techniques and I have used

both coloured pencil and soft pastel

on the surface of gouache paintings,

which allows for some super effects.

The opaqueness of gouache helps for

painting light on dark, making it much

more forgiving than watercolour. t

Part 1Practise essential gouache techniques as Murray Incebegins

a short series on how to paint with this versatile and colourful medium

Beginner’s gouache

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

nPractise gouache techniques,

including dry brush and layering

nLearn a painting process

step by step

nHow to paint layers in

a landscape

Ann Hathaway’s Cottage, gouache, 7x10in. (18x25cm). The sky in this painting was put in using the gouache considerably thinned down,

almost as I would with watercolour. The rest of the painting, however, was completed with the paint thinned only a very little.

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