I have some MGraham’s and a couple DaVinci’s, so can’t speak from experience regarding other brands, but I can share some thoughts from looking at other artists’ work and reading reviews.

Lukas gets decent reviews for the most part. They have two different 12-color sets though, and I’m not sure they’re the same paint. The Professional Set of 20ml tubes are their Gouache Extra-Fine, and would probably be a good foundation for you. The Intro Set of 12ml tubes I have a feeling may be their old Studio line paints, but I’ve never tried to confirm this.

LeFranc & Bourgeois Linel are inexpensive 25mm tubes, and at least from a reliable manufacturer.

Both Royal Talens and Maimeri are also from respected manufacturers, and 20ml tubes.

(Talens also offers a very inexpensive “Creations” line of gouache, which I’d guess are scholastic grade, maybe not much – if any – better than Royal & Langnickel, Reeves, Marie’s and suchlike 24-tubes-for-$10 sets.)

Michael Jarman, an artist here on WetCanvas, works mostly in pastel, but for about a year not too long ago regularly posted a series of really nice gouache paintings (look him up). He spoke highly of Turner gouache, and certainly got good results with them. They’re like $6.49/25ml tube compared to Lukas at $4.99/20ml tube.

If the Lukas set of 12 you mentioned is their “Extra Fine” 20ml Professional Set for $19.99, I’d start there*. You’ll get 6 colors you already have in your W&N set, but you’ll also get a lot of paintings out of it, and enough mixing options to figure out what you think you’re missing, which you can then fill in with a few open stock tubes.

*(if it’s the Intro Set, I’d check with the vendor to make sure they’re the Extra-Fine as opposed to the Studio line.)

Hope that’s somewhat helpful!

Kos

I sent an e-mail to Jerry’s this morning asking if the Intro Set is the same “Gouache Extra Fine” as in the Professional Set. Will share the answer here.

Kos

No answer yet, but here’s a link to a brochure with the colour chart for Lukas gouache (on pages 4 and 5), with pigments listed.

http://www.lukasdobrasil.com.br/pdf/guache-folder.pdf

Kos

Jerry’s has always been good with making any issue or problems right, so I would say this is very out of character for the company as I have had numerous defects replace over the course of 5 years and they have always delivered 100%.

My experience with Lukas Gouache is that you really have to do your homework and research the pigments. Many are mixes for what should be a single pigment or pigment substitutions (aka hues), and their White is VERY yellowish compared with other brands of white gouache. This is true of many gouache brands though — buyer beware always! I think a limited palette of artist grade paint, with pigments you know, is a better alternative to many tubes of lesser quality paint. You’ll have more control over your palette that way, better harmonized paintings, less chalky-looking work, and will learn a ton about color mixing. FWIW, Da Vinci is a good buy (large tubes, lower price), but again, you have to check the pigments for each color and be sure you’re getting what the color name implies! Another thing you can do is use artist grade watercolors with opaque pigments for the lighter colors, and a good white gouache to lighten/tint/mix them with. That actually gives you superior paint, since it doesn’t have all the cheap opacifiers that manufacturers put into the gouache tubes (and still charge you a lot of money for!)

Here are four little sketches on toned paper, done on a recent trip to New Hampshire. All the paints were watercolors, except for the white. Looks just like gouache, right?

……. I was thinking about using watercolors and adding white to make them opaque, like gouache. But I was also thinking that I didn’t want to end up wasting paint as you use a lot more when painting with gouache, and artist grade watercolors are expensive. Wouldn’t I get more bang for my buck if I just bought gouache. Or are watercolors so highly pigmented that their tinting strength is so that you end up using less than you would with gouache? Perhaps with student grade gouache that is so, but I thought that good quality gouache uses higher concentrations of pigment to get the opacity, thus containing more pigment than watercolor?

Artist grade watercolor has more pigment than artist grade gouache. Gouache does not use higher pigmentation to get the opacity! This is a common misconception. That’s why WN Gouache is a little cheaper per ml than WN watercolor, and ditto for Holbein, etc. You’re paying for their pigment, and watercolor has more pigment because it does not contain the cheap opacifiers that the gouache has.

Or does it end up being the same, and using watercolors gives you the freedom to use it as watercolors or gouache (when adding white)?
Thank you so much for all your information.

I do feel that using watercolor gives me the versatility of working transparently and/or with opacity. Why limit myself? Also, gouache does not rewet as easily as watercolor, so any savings would probably go by the wayside as that gouache dries out and forms hard chunks in your palette that cannot be rewet and fall out. That being said, gouache does have the advantage of already being opaque. If you’re not interested in working transparently at all, that can be a plus for you.

Another option (which I still do from time to time) is to use watercolor for the dark pigments and gouache for the light pigments (cadmium yellow, cadmium orange, and white). I love working with transparent darks, so I actually prefer to use watercolors for the darks.

I’d just suggest if you go the watercolor route that you keep the palette with white goauche separate from your transparent watercolor palette. Once white gets into your transparent colors, it’s Game Over for transparency! I have two labeled palettes for transparent watercolor and opaque. I try not to let white enter my transparent palette. Some of the pigments in them are different too.

One thing you can do to lower the cost is to look for artist grade paint that is less expensive, and use a more limited palette. You have to really do some homework for that, but you’ve got a lot of experience and brains to pick here on Wetcanvas to help you out! I’ve found the Lukas Aquarelle 1862 watercolor Cadmium Yellow Light to be quite excellent, and it comes in large 24ml tubes. Side by side with other brands, it easily holds its own at a far lower price point. (That’s not the case with all the Lukas colors, but it is for that one!) You really do need Cadmiums on the light side if you’re going to use watercolor as gouache. If I need to buy Winsor Newton or Da Vinci, and it’s a color I use a lot, I go for the 37ml tubes to get the extra savings of buying in quantity.

I think that, while artist/prof grade watercolor is more expensive than artist/prof grade gouache, people that pay for artist grade gouache are usually paying for more pigment and type of pigment than they are paying for cheap gouache that contains inexpensive pigments and less pigment/more filler. Certain brands, like the ones mentioned below, do formulate their paints with higher pigmentation and larger pigment particles to achieve better opacity. Pigment types that are naturally opaque are a bonus, especially with Cadmiums.

Most of my paints are M. Graham gouache, second being Horadam gouache (Schmincke), and the other two being Holbein and W&N. Certain pigments are naturally opaque, like Cadmiums and Cobalts, but those two are expensive probably because they are heavy metals, so a 15ml tube of Cad Yellow from MG will cost about $14 for me. Certain pigments, like the Quinacridones, will cost a lot too, but due to their natural transparency, which prompts the manufacturers to pack a lot of Quin pigment to achieve a higher opacity.

As for fillers/opacifiers, the only gouache brands that I know that don’t put opacifiers in their gouache are MG, Holbein, Schmincke (Horadam line) and W&N (to an extent). If living in the U.S, W&N may cost around the same as MG, but some of their colors contain fillers. The Technical Advisor for W&N wrote to James Gurney stating that some of their colors are formulated with a filler to achieve good coverage. The Phthalos and Ultramarine (those being in a class of transparent pigments) are probably opacified.

As for the other three gouache brands, especially M. Graham, they don’t put opacifiers in their formulas. That will make Horadam and Holbein gouache as expensive as M. Graham, that is, if you are living in the U.S and comparing the U.S prices of MG gouache to Horadam and Holbein gouache from an overseas seller like Jackson’s Art.

There is no doubt that high grade watercolors are more expensive than high grade gouache, but not every manufacturer uses filler/opacifiers to achieve high coverage. Some manufacturers do use a ton of large particles, achieving opacity without using stuff like calcium carbonate, titanium dioxide or zinc sulfide.