Gouache is essentially a form of opaque watercolor. It’s a fun and versatile water-based painting medium that is well suited for landscape painting on location.
Gouache dries more quickly than watercolor and can be used opaquely to work from dark to light, like oil. The opaque nature of the paint allows for easy corrections and changes in the course of painting. Gouache dries to a beautiful matte finish that has its own unique character.
Like transparent watercolor, gouache is readily portable and cleans up with water. Dried gouache can always be reactivated, so areas in a painting can be blended or lifted, and dried paint on palettes and brushes can be easily removed.
What’s the difference between gouache and transparent watercolor?
Gouache and transparent watercolor are different formulations of the same binder (gum arabic) and the same pigments (though they may be ground more coarsely for gouache and more finely for watercolor.)
Contrary to popular belief, most high quality gouache is not usually made opaque through the addition of calcium carbonate, titanium dioxide or other opacifiers, though that can be the case in some of the lower quality student-grade lines of gouache.
The primary difference between artist-quality transparent watercolor and gouache is the pigment to binder balance. Transparent watercolor has more binder and less pigment — allowing for transparency, and gouache has less binder and more pigment — contributing to opacity. There are a few pigments, phthalo colors for example, that are inherently so transparent that it’s difficult to achieve sufficient opacity without an opacifying agent of some kind.
Online Gouache Resources
Resources for gouache information are still a bit thin compared to other painting mediums, but interest is growing. Here are a few sources:
Wikipedia, general article on gouache
Gurney Journey, James Gurney’s blog (link includes a search for “gouache”), with lots of gouache resources and Info.
Also, Gouache in the Wild, Gurney’s excellent video on painting outdoors in gouache is highly informative and very inexpensive as art instruction videos go.. (Here is my Lines and Colors review.) In his bountiful selection of free YouTube videos, Gurney has an easygoing, “casually talking to a friend” kind of video delivery that make his fun to watch. Between his blog and videos, Gurney provides one of the most informative and extensive sources of information on gouache of which I’m currently aware. Highly recommended.
Lena Rivo, offers a PDF version of her Guide to Gouache on her website, as well as gouache demos, tutorials and resources on her YouTube channel. She also has a definitive guide to properly and archivally varnishing gouache.
Sarah Burns, an American painter living and working in Scotland, offers a wide range of YouTube videos, the majority of which are about gouache. Part instructional, part “follow me on my journey as an artist”. She does numeropus comparisons and tests of different gouache paints, as well as “look over my shoulder as I paint” kind of videos. She also has some free instruction articles on her blog, as well as offering paid formal video courses.
Justin Donaldson is a contemporary painter who offers a number of informative instructional gouache videos on YouTube.
Judd Mercer paints in both oil and gouache. The YouTube link I’ve given has a search for gouache in it. He has tutorials and sketchbook flip throughs. I particularly enjoy his use of gouache on toned paper.
Tiffanie Mang paints in both gouache and oil. My link has a search of her YouTube channel with a search for gouache. SHe ofers a number of tutorials, ofteh with an emphasis on small paintings of thumbnail sketches. There is also a gouache demo of hers on Proko. She offers a free downloadable instructional PDF.
Handprint, this is an excellent source of information on watercolor and, to a lesser extent, gouache.
Lines and Colors, this is my general interest arts blog, with a search for “gouache” in the link.
Some Gouache Artists — Historic
Luigi Loir (Lines and Colors article)
Eugene Galien Laloue (Lines and Colors article)
Stepan Kolesnikoff (Lines and Colors article)
Adolph von Menzel (Wikimedia Commons), also on Gurney Journey
James Jacques Joseph Tissot, link is to
Life of Christ (from In Praise of Follies) Though he painted his society paintings in oil, Tissot did an extensive series of Biblical paintings in gouache. Many are in the collection of the Jewish Museum.
Some Gouache Artists — Contemporary
James Gurney
As I mentioned in the resources section at left, James Gurney’s blog contains a lot of information about gouache, as well as examples of his own paintings. You can also find his short videos on YouTube.
Thomas Paquette
Paquette works in oil and gouache (link is to his gouache paintings). His gouache paintings are small in scale and simply beautiful. You can still get copies of his new book of Gouaches, Intimate Landscapes, as well as his previous book of gouache paintings. Here are Lines and Colors articles on Thomas Paquette.
Larry Francis
Larry Francis is a Philadelphia artist who works in both oil and gouache. As far as I know, he doesn’t have a dedicated website; you can find some of his gouache paintings on the site of the Gross McCleaf gallery. Here are my Lines and Colors articles on Larry Francis.
Erik Tiemens
Tiemens is another film industry visual development artist, working for Industrial Light and Magic. He paints wonderful gouache paintings, often in the tradition of 17th century Dutch “Golden Age” landscapes. He has a video on Vimeo.
Mike Hernendez
Hernendez is a Production Designer at Dreamworks Animation, and paints wonderfully immediate plein air gouache paintings.
Nathan Fowkes
Fowkes is another film industry concept artist who paints plein air in watercolor and Gouache, the “Landscape Sketchbook” part of this gallery page is mostly gouache. He has a recent book: How to Paint Landscapes Quickly and Beautifully in Watercolor and Gouache (Bookshop.org link)
Lena Rivo
Lena Rivo is a Crimean artist living and working in Portugal. She paints bright, colorful landscapes, particular of beaches, as well as still life and figurative work. She also works in oil, but the link above is to the gouache page on her website. See also: her blog and videos on YouTube and Vimeo.
Richard Bradish
Bradish ia a painter who uses gouache in bold and inventive ways, with strong contrasts, textural brush work and lots of spatter. Link is to his primary website; see also his Behance portfolio and Vimeo videos.
Google Art Project a selection of paintings using gouache – mostly historic