Some pictures (gouache and me)

Something else.

These are some gouache sketches I've been doing and posting to Instagram.

I've been trying to learn to use gouache. I began with no idea what it was. I'd met the word, maybe, in a museum card or a catalogue -- a mysterious French-sounding medium. Then, when I started following a lot of artists on Instagram, I began seeing posts tagged #gouache. A box of cheap gouache paints is less outlay than buying a tablet and Procreate, so.

My default medium has been watercolour pencil. Years ago, my mom gave me one of those big, highly satisfying arrays of colours, two trays deep. They've lasted a long time. The pencils are portable and easy to use, with minimum set-up. I just need a sharpener and a small brush. Often I'll scribble-colour patches on the opposite page of the sketchbook and then use those as a palette. This works pretty well, except that, because I'm never mixing more than a brushful at a time, the paints don't have much flow. A background of any size is challenging.

I had the idea in my head that I'd try gouache and fall in love with it immediately. Instead, of course, it has been a process of meeting and learning about an idiosyncratic stranger.

Asyouknowfriends, the advantage of gouache is that it offers more intense colour than watercolour because the pigment grain is coarser, and it is more opaque because the mix includes things like chalk. The dry surface has a rough texture, almost like fine sandpaper. If the colour is deep it looks gorgeously velvety, with lots of tiny texture.

( Gouache and Me: a story in pictures )

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