Painting with Gouache

Gouache on hot-pressed watercolor paper, 7″x11″
Click here to enlarge

I’ve been wanting to experiment with painting in gouache (opaque watercolor) and today finally got the chance. I so adore the artwork of Maira Kalman and the painterly, juicy way she uses gouache….which reminds me a lot of the kind of oil painting I want to do–John Sonsini is one of my current favorites…and his work reminds me a lot of Alice Neel, one of my major art heroes, who, at the age of 80, did a wonderful nude self portrait of herself painting herself.

It turns out gouache, at least on the two relatively small pieces I’ve tried so far, actually combines the best of watercolor, acrylics and oils. You can blend easily, paint with bright juicy colors, it dries quickly but not too quickly, you can paint over areas, and it cleans up with water. I had some ancient tubes of Winsor Newton Designer’s Gouache and bought a few new tubes since some of mine had turned to cement. I love it!

I’ve been trying to paint in that juicy, painterly way with acrylics and oils but haven’t succeeded so far. I haven’t worked out the balance between working quickly, free and loose, and still trying to capture a likeness of my subject and getting to detailed and tight. Then there’s the problems associated with the actual media–acrylic dries too fast too do much blending and oil dries so slowly that I keep having to stop and let it dry for a week before continuing.

I’m excited about the possibilities with gouache and enjoyed this first experiment, which was inspired by a dream. I posted the original sketchbook image here.

If you want to see more of Maira Kalman’s art, she’s had a monthly art blog on the New York Times website and the work is stunning. It will be published in a book in October. The NY Times offers a free 2-week subscription, which I took in order to look at the whole year of her art blogs.