#30×30, 2025, Day 07: Gouache: Can it Replace Watercolor?

Well – what is this? Six tries at the gouache? Plus a couple days doodling in the park? Whatever I said now would be premature judgment :)

Is it better? Should you switch from watercolor?

Well absolutely not if you like the flow of watercolor!

Watercolor if full of natural effects that cannot be reproduced or replaced; floating color mixes on the page, there are back-flowing blooms, subtle granulation of sedimentary pigment, and of course it’s famously soft gradations.

With gouache; well of course the ability to paint light over dark is the most obvious. But it also changes color mixing completely for me.

I ‘ve been making my gouache from scratch, but even if you were using tubes – I’d be mixing colors with the palette knife on a palette, not on the page. No guessing about the right amount of dilution, or how the washes will lay over each other. You have your piles of paint, and you move them around, cross mix between colors, neutralizing, warming or cooling, greying – you can do whatever you want! You get to have a perfectly customized palette before you even begin.

I’d say; in watercolor you paint with the colors you brought. In gouache, you can mix a new paint box for every scene.

And then there is Contrast. Because the gouache is opaque, the darks are significantly darker. Even if you use black-ish watercolors (Perlyne Green, Indigo, Neutral tint), a watercolor is never as contrasty as one might like.

Even though the gouache will change when it dries (dark colors lighten, and light colors darken – leading to an overall shrinking in gamut). Of course it does contrast up again if you varnish it. I’m using Pebeo Gouache Varnish – but I wont stick with it after this first can runs out, its too shiny for my taste. I’ll probably try the Krylon Matte next – or possibly Cold Wax! (which is matte as well). Some people burnish their painting with wax, just like a car :) Though I do worry about disturbing impasto areas.

So: My thoughts right now?

For high contrast? Bold brushwork? For pre-mixing your color? For broken color (like the impressionists)? For loading brushes with more than one color? Yes, I think gouache it’s worth a try!

But does this count as Direct Watercolor? (Dang it Marc! Why can’t you stick to the topic?!)

I’m not sure yet :) What do you think?

It is absolutely Alla Prima painting – but it’s not watercolor; because you’re not dancing in partnership with the water. You’re making brushstrokes and they stay where you put them. Gouache is more of a directed experience, much less of a cooperation with the medium. You might not guess it from these sketches; but gouache could be great for control freaks :)

Anyway! Lets keep going and see what I learn.

The end goal is to get the best of both worlds. I want to get to the point where I’m combining wet-in-wet and dry brushing on top, and figuring out how to make it all work together.

It’s only Day Seven :) Let see what happens!

~m