Gouache Basics: A Quick Warm-Up Before Our Sketchbook Series!

1. About the class: Wouldn't it be amazing to have your own sketchbook completely filled with gouache paintings like these, seeing every page painted by you. How happy would that make you? Well, don't worry. I got you. This 2025, I promise you'll have a sketchbook of your own filled with beautiful paintings. Hi, everyone. I'm Anaca Shedas, an artist from India. So this class is a short warm up session which will help you get familiar with the fundamental properties of guauch before we dive into our upcoming gouache sketchbook series. So let's get started and explore these basics together. 2. Gouache Properties: I made this booklet for an easy way to put all of them together. So if you want to make a similar booklet like this, feel free to check the layout that's attached. Also, you can use any gauche paints if you want to try out these properties. So let's begin with consistency, a key factor that makes gauche so versatile. So these are three ways of how you can use this paint. That is dry where we don't use water, keeping it thick and opaque. Next is creamy, which is said to be the ideal balance for smooth and even strokes. The last one would be loose, where we add more water, giving a watercolor like transparency. We'll be using these techniques throughout the sketchbook series, so getting ahold of your paint consistency would be a total game changer. Next is opacity and layering, a property that sets Guash apart from watercolor. Due to its opaque nature, as you can see, Gauche naturally covers the paper completely. Not just that, Gosch lets you layer and correct mistakes effortlessly. So basically, this is the property that allows us to add highlights or even make corrections. That is, you can layer any color over any other. That is, it can be either dark over light or even light over dark. Well, this property is not applicable for watercolors. Now let's talk about the matte finish and the fast drying nature. For this, I'm using red in three different mediums, namely watercolors, gauche and acrylic. Starting with watercolors, you can see it's giving you that transparent layer with a slight shine. In case of acrylic, it stays glossy and permanent. If you look closely at gauche, you can see that it gives you that matte finish once dried. Apart from that, it also dries quickly. Another surprising property of gauche is its water solubility. Even when dry, gouache can be reactivated with water. So this property lets us blend colors even after they dry, but it also means layers can lift if we overwork. So learning how to handle this property is a key thing for achieving smooth gradients. And not just that, you don't have to throw away your palette because anytime you can reactivate your paint from your palette itself. Gush also has an important property called dry shift, which means color changes as they dry. For dry shift, I've already prepared three spatches of different colors, namely brown, green, and cream. These base layers are completely dry, as you can see. You can notice how the green and brown swatches look quite dark when I just paint, but after drying, you can see them significantly becoming lighter. Now look at the cream swatch, which is the lightest color here. So when I apply a fresh layer, you can see how it starts off much lighter, but once it dries, it becomes darker. So this is what dry shift means. That is, dark colors dry lighter and light colors dry, darker, something that you'll have to keep in mind while mixing your colors. This actually happens because gouache has more pigment than that of binder. Next is its versatile nature. So when diluted, gouache flows like watercolor, but when used thick, it becomes bold and opaque. So by adjusting water levels, you can use gauche for both bold opaque layers and for soft delicate washes like these similar to watercolor washes. Lastly, thanks to its high pigment load, the colors always stay vibrant, even with lots of water. This makes gauche ideal for sketchbooks and also for professional illustrations. 3. Wrap up: These are the fundamental properties of gouache, just what you need to get started. Now, we are all set for our upcoming gauche sketchbook series where we'll paint 30 to 35 gauche paintings together in an ASIC sketchbook. Starting this March 2025, we'll start with the first seven paintings of the series, and slowly, by the end of the year, you'll have a complete sketchbook to flip through with your own filled gauche collections. Don't worry if you're new because it's going to be a beginner friendly series, starting from the basics and building up gradually. I'm pretty sure you're going to love it, so stay tuned and see you in the next class.