SKIES

For the months of October, November and December the ‘theme’ for your gouache paintings is Sky.

Skies can be interpreted within the landscape, as studies by themselves, as coastal paintings etc. Your paintings can take the form of quick paint sketches, plein air studies, studio work or finished paintings…..any which way you want! You can use pure gouache, a mix of watercolour and gouache or gouache with another medium. Don’t forget to try out different surfaces including watercolour paper, pastel paper and illustration board…… Use your brushes to create surface texture, and most of all have fun and enjoy the painting process:)
When you are ready, don’t forget to post your efforts for everyone to share…..

Maggie L

Hello Liz,
I’ll try to answer some of your questions:
Watercolour for the most part is a transparent painting medium, which enables light to pass through layers of transparent pigment and bounce back off the white of the paper. This is what gives watercolour its freshness and ‘glow’.

Gouache is an opaque watercolour medium with intense pigment and gum Arabic as a binder. It is possible to use gouache with lots of water and create thin passages of colour, but it will never be totally transparent like transparent watercolour. Different brands of gouache are slightly different in pigment properties and do differ.

Acrylic is a different animal and a very different manufacturing process to make the paint. You can water down acrylic, but it will always be ‘acrylic’. There are also brands of gouache that are called gouache, but are more like acrylic. I don’t personally have any experience with these, but do know they exist.

Casein is also different from gouache…. as is Egg Tempera. I don’t know much about either one, but presume the binders mixed with pigment are different from gum arabic used as a binder in gouache.

Below is information taken directly from the Winsor and Newton gouache page of their website for specific clarification on W&N Designer gouache…..which is the brand I use most often.

Taken from W&N website:
Designers Gouache colours are a range of opaque water colours, mainly used by designers, illustrators and commercial artists to create vibrant illustrations in solid colour. Gouache is also widely used in fine art as an opaque water colour.
In addition to the single pigment colours there are the other colours that are produced using specific mixtures of pigments. These are equally important as we understand that it is difficult if not impossible to consistently mix some colours by hand and time consuming if you are doing so when painting. By Winsor & Newton mixing these colours in the manufacturing process the artist is saving time and colour otherwise wasted on incorrect mixing. As an opaque medium it is also more difficult to obtain a complete spectrum with single pigments because many are naturally more transparent. We therefore provide these mixed colours to ensure the widest spectrum without compromising brilliance and opacity.
It is widely misunderstood that Gouache is opaque as a result of adding chalk or other such materials. The opaque colours within the Winsor & Newton Designers Gouache range are opaque due to the exceptionally high levels of pigmentation in the formulation, which results in unsurpassed covering power and clean colour mixing. A number of colours now have increased pigment strength.

Opacity
All the Designers’ Gouache colours are more opaque than Artists’ Water Colours. However, the degree to which they cover does vary. The relative opacity of the colours is marked on the colour chart. As a result of the high level of pigmentation Winsor & Newton Designers Gouache dries to a matt finish. This reduces the reflection when photographing the work
Drying times
One of the natural attributes of gum arabic – the binder used in Designers Gouache is that it is quick drying. This faster drying allows quick working techniques and preliminary sketching to be done. Also as with water colour, work can be finished quickly and as a result travelling with work is made much easier.

A footnote from Maggie:
I used to post my gouache work on the Casein, Gouache Tempera forum, but it is a small forum and not many of us ‘gwashers’ over there. A couple of months ago I asked Doug if I could start a gouache paint sketch thread and he suggested it would attract more attention with greater participation in ‘The Studio’ section of the Watercolor Forum. It has been successful, but many beginners were put off by the time constraints I set in the initial threads. I too was having difficulty with drying time between subsequent applications of colour and being able to complete the ‘challenge’ on time. All things considered Doug came up with the suggestion of a ‘Gouache Corner’ with an ongoing thread called ‘The Challenge Of Gouache’ (this thread) where members new and experienced in the ways of gouache can post work, ask questions etc. In short the thread hopefully will evolve into a kind of encyclopedia of ‘everything gouache’. I personally use gouache quite a lot, and love how versatile it can be….. I also love sharing ideas, techniques and encouraging beginning and experienced artist to try new techniques. Most of all I love talking about my discoveries and experiments with different grounds and substrates.[/I]

Hope this clarifies how this thread came about:)

Maggie L

Deborah,
I love all three artists you posted links to. All so very different too.
Maggie

Deborah, I adore the two examples of work from Nissen….at first glance (before reading your response) I thought that you had been super busy already!!!!:lol:

Doug, sometimes a ‘push’ (or rather a nudge) in the right direction is all we need (lol)…

Pandemonium, I’m not familiar with his work, but will check it out. Thanks for stopping by. Are you going to be ‘gwashing’ with us?

Deborah, You ARE super talented:D Wow! Larry’s first gouache is nice……could you sweet-talk him into posting some of his gouache paintings here by any chance? I for one would have a lot to learn form a plein air painter such as Larry working in gouache:)

Anghwar, So glad you have joined us again this month. I think it will be a fun topic with lots to learn in paint application and various techniques. The link to the sky photos is fantastic. I love all the smoky, hazy shots from Australia….reminds me of a visit to Aus some years back. I only wish I had been ‘into’ gouache then for making quick on location studies.

Maggie