White gouache and watercolour – an exciting combination

For a couple of years I abandoned watercolour painting entirely as I was concentrating on my oils, but then I rediscovered the thrill of sketching outdoors and found that watercolour was the easiest medium to take with me and it made for quick sketches and was a great way to capture the moment.

But then I grew frustrated with the limitations of pure watercolour – especially having to paint dark over light and having to carefully plan and paint in layers. I longed for the freedom that oils had given me. With them I could go in light over dark or dark over light, I could cover my mistakes, I could create a nice solidity to the painting. In short I could paint with my heart and not with my head. I wasn’t so bound by the rules.

What I was bound by however was the kit. There was always so much more to carry with oils. So, I asked myself, was there a medium that was compact and lightweight and that would give me the freedom of oils? And that was when I discovered gouache.

I loved it! And I still do. But I began to struggle with the fact that the paints in the palette dried out too fast and often crumbled and became useless. I didn’t want to carry tubes around with me (more stuff to lug around!) and sometimes I even wanted the translucence of watercolour as well as the flat opaqueness of gouache. What to do?

The solution!

I was looking at the work of Marco Bucci whose plein air work I greatly admire. Check him out here on Youtube painting outdoors and see his technique of adding a little white gouache to all his watercolour mixes. The process and the end result were exactly what I was looking for. Now I just needed to test it out. Was watercolour paint mixed with white gouache as good as pure gouache on it’s own? Or would it make everything look pale and pastel?

Let’s take a look. I don’t want top bore you with a chart of mixes, so instead I’ve chosen the less scientific method of sharing a couple of sketches, one in gouache and the other in watercolour plus white gouache.

Here’s an outdoor sketch I made in pure gouache. The colours are solid, flat and opaque and you can see where I have painted light over dark.

And here I have used watercolour and added in white gouache where needed. I get the best of both worlds! I can paint light over dark (as I did with the leaves and flowers in the pots) and can contrast opaque with transparent washes to great effect.

Most colours here had some white gouache added to them to give them body, but in a few places it is just pure watercolour. The gouache paint has not particularly lightened the watercolour when I have just added a small touch of it to the paint, but it has made it opaque.

My conclusion:

I really think that for me I have now found the perfect solution to the way I want to sketch. I can carry a small palette of watercolours and a small tube of white gouache and be able to paint from the heart in a kind of unstructured way that is unrestricting and fun. That suits me!

As ever, I’d love to hear your comments and views on this subject. Have you tried this mix of gouache and watercolour? What do you use for sketching? Please share your thoughts with us here.

(If you are interested in painting in gouache then take a look at my online course)

#Gouache #paintingtips #sketching #watercolourpainting

What’s my most watched YouTube video?

I’ve used YouTube for a few years now, both for hosting painting course videos and for putting up videos for the general public. I’m now reviewing them and bringing some of the older ones up to date, and I want to share with you my most watched video (just under 42,000 views). This is also the video that has been commented upon the most. It seems to have hit the spot. Maybe I should do more like this!

It is about how to transform the way you paint in watercolor so that your end result is more painterly and professional. I hope you enjoy it and find it useful. 🙂

As always, please make any comments below, and sign up to follow this blog if you find it helpful.

#learningtopaint #watercolortips #watercolourpainting #landscapepainting #paintingtips #watercolourtips

6 crucial landscape colours

My six most hard-working colours, and why I chose them!

I have used the Portable Painter 12 pan watercolour palette for quite a while now and it has become my main palette. All my others gather dust in a drawer, as I always take this one with me wherever I go. It is compact, sturdy and incredibly well thought out and constructed. It is also versatile and I like having twelve colours at my fingertips.

But this week I purchased it’s younger sibling, the Portable Painter Micro – a palette so small that it easily fits in the palm of your hand and slips into a pocket. It could become my new favourite as it is so compact. But, and this may be a big but, this palette only has room for six colours. 😧 So I need to make a BIG DECISION. Which 6 colours will become my crucial landscape set?

What I need for this restricted palette are six colours that are hard working, that will do anything I need when outdoors sketching the landscape or in an urban situation. But which six? Actually, I am going to cheat and add a seventh, white gouache, but I’ll keep that in a separate little pot.

I spent an hour or two searching the web and YouTube to see what others were using, but to be honest I just got confused and a bit unconvinced that their colour choices would be right for me. I needed six colours that I knew I would be happy with. So, how did I go about making that choice?

Here’s how I picked my top six.

Firstly I looked at my current palette and wrote a list of the colours I use most from it. There are always some colours that are essentials, and these are the ones that you always reach for in a painting and which you always need to top up. They’re the ones that do most of the work. For me these are the following:

But that’s more than six! So more editing is needed. My second question was can I make any of these colours easily from any of the others? By playing around I found that a mix of burnt sienna and lemon yellow makes a very passable raw sienna/yellow ochre. So I can eliminate that from my new set. Payne’s grey is a mix of ultramarine blue and burnt sienna so that can go too! Now we’re getting somewhere.

I tried some other colour mixes with the six colours I had left. Would they be able to produce almost any colour I might need? My answer? A resounding yes! Time for a quick celebration!

So here are my six essential colours:

1. Ultramarine blue

2. Cerulean blue

3. Cadmium red

4. Burnt sienna

5. Lemon yellow

6. Green Apatite

To see what colour combos they can make, take a look below:

Great aren’t they?! I’m really pleased with this, but will only know if I’ve got it right after a road test or two. I’ll let you know! What would be your 6 colours if you had to choose? Let us know in the comments below!

#colourmixing #pleinairkit #watercolourpainting #watercolourtips