Mixing gouache with watercolour
As a novice watercolourist I was very carful to use the most transparent of pigments. To see the white of the paper glowing through the paint gave an extra vivacity to the piece. But now I have changed. I still like to see a large measure of transparency, but it only registers as such if set against opaque paint. Many watercolours pigments are semi-opaque to begin with. All the Cadmium colours are opaque. All the earth colours are opaque. But my real reason for changing is that I have learned to go easy on myself. Not only do I accept mistakes, I pursue them. I now paint with less concern for detail. More interest in the structure of a painting. So I tend now to paint larger and darker initial washes that cover areas that I would have normally tried to isolate. It’s liberating to then pick out details with opaque paint.
Watercolour works best when it is applied and left alone. I could have taken more care to finesse this harbour scene. But I quite like its messiness which is minimally touched up here and there with spots of opaque. Some cobalt blue mixed with gouache white for water reflections. Some spots of whitened yellow ochre for ropes & buoys to compliment the dominant blue colours.
This pony sketch almost lost the plot. But a few careful gouache corrections brought it back from the brink. My first thought was to do the entire painting in gouache… because a pony limbs are difficult to get right and opaque paint would make the task easier. So I prepared a sketch on textured paper for a pure gouache painting . But for some reason I made a trial watercolour on a scrape of watercolour paper and with minimal expectations it worked out okay. Does the inclusion of opaque paint lessen the result? Not at all. Too much opaque would I think have overtaken the watercolour.
Mind you I love pure gouache paintings. However I struggle with gouache en plein air because it dries so quickly out of doors, especially in a warm climate. But I am reasonably happy on site to make do with pure watercolour provided I have back up from Chinese white or gouache white.
—————- oo0oo—————
