Watercolour and gouache
Watercolour is transparent: the white of the paper is your lightest light. Gouache is the same gum-arabic binder with more pigment and chalk, so it is opaque and matte. Dürer, Turner and Cézanne used both.
Watercolour
Plan your whites — once they are covered you cannot get them back. Work light to dark. Wet-on-wet gives soft blooms and skies; wet-on-dry gives crisp edges. Use 300 gsm (140 lb) paper so it doesn't buckle.
Cézanne's late watercolours leave lots of bare paper; small overlapping patches of colour describe the planes of each form. Turner's alpine watercolours use scraping and lifting for light.
Gouache
Gouache dries lighter or darker than it looks wet, so test first. You can paint light over dark, which makes it forgiving. Degas used it over graphite in Dancer Onstage. Keep layers thin — thick gouache cracks.
Try it
- Paint a graded wash from dark to light.
- Paint a sky wet-on-wet, then a crisp tree line wet-on-dry.
- Copy a small detail of Dürer's Young Hare in gouache.
Examples to study
Watch
Stop Starting a Watercolor Painting with Pencil, This is Better! · Art Prof: Your Art School
Plein Air Techniques that are a Gamechanger: Watercolor & Oil Pastel · Art Prof: Your Art School
Videos load from YouTube (privacy-enhanced mode) only when you press play.
Gouache Painting Secrets for Beginners with a RISD Art Professor · Art Prof: Your Art School
Videos load from YouTube (privacy-enhanced mode) only when you press play.