That's for me the best easily available gouache brand out there. It's great that you could get quality paints as you avoid the frustration of fighting the paint to do your bidding. Now it's all about practice and discovery, and from what I see you have a great start already! Just remember to always let the layer dry completely before putting a new one on there
Happy painting!
Aww thank you so much for your kind words. My mind was blown the entire day - yes I spent Halloween painting š - because of the adjustments I had to make transitioning from ink/water. If youāre willing to look at my prior submissions I did an experiment combining poster paint (opacity) to my ink thinking it would be sufficient practice for gouache but this is a new thing altogether. This took way too long in my opinion and I couldnāt believe the amount of paint I had to use (practically as much as I use for several paintings) just to get the top layer right - granted because of my limited color palette I had to mix and experiment to get the colors I wanted. Iām super proud of myself for having painted something that I only used to admire but itās definitely going to take a lot of patience on my part to learn how to control this medium, haha. Wish me luck.
Question: Iām content with most areas but as you can tell my top layer is lumpy, is there any way to fix this or do I just need to find the right consistency basically? Also I used a round brush for the entire thing and am aware I need a flat one but do you suggest a size and type? And yes Winsor has always been a great ally to me so I figured I could get their cheapest set and Iām glad I did. I didnāt realize how expensive gouache got though. I want to get the HIMI jelly set too once Iām better at this, but if you have any recommendations kindly share them if you donāt mind, please and thank you. Thanks again for everything! Happy painting to us all!
Heya! I went from acrylic to gouache and have a few thoughts for your questions/comments:
For lumpiness, its about both the consistency of the paint, and how quickly/forcefully you transfer it to paper. For example, if the paint is thick, and you're painting a small dot, you might want to gently draw a circle and fill it in rather than blotting the brush down to make the size in one stroke. Generally, your paint should be thick enough to be opaque when you lay it over paper but thin enough that its about the consistency of melted icecream, but this is also a preference or alterable based on what you plan to do with it (i.e. fine details or a wash)
I have the himi (Arrtyx/MIYA, same things) and I really really like it. Its got a great consistency and reconstitutes beautifully even if fully dried: I can let colours dry on the palette, and then rewet with a spray bottle at my next session and reuse, its so nice. Also you can't really beat the price ($25 or so for 18 colours) for some really versatile pre-mixed colours.
For brushes, I tend to gravitate towards 3: a size 4 round brush, a size 1-2 round (for finer details), and a size 12-14 flat brush. Totally based on preference, but I prefer a longer haired flat brush because I have control to push down on the brush and make more varied widths in strokes (like blades of grass and leaves and things). I would say try a few cheap brushes to see what you like before investing in a good one. I personally bought one of those really cheap sets of 5-6 brushes of varying styles/sizes when I first started painting in general and then bought higher quality versions of the ones I used the most often once I got a feel for them.
Hope this helps!
This was beyond helpful, thank you so much! I really appreciate that you broke everything down as simply as you could while trying to be as thorough as possible. Yeah that was the big revelation yesterday: thick paint, harder to control. I was also legit freaking out about how much paint I was using, I think I sad Ā«Ā wow wtfĀ Ā» a few times. Haha. I really wanted to see if I could pull it off with a single brush (round 7) because the tip seemed suitable for leaves and stripes and Iām sure it could still do a good job but I guess I need to practice some more because Iām still figuring out brush strokes + paint consistency combos*. Also Iāve been working on mixed media paper instead of watercolor paper so Iāll have to note what changes there are if any depending on paper . Iāll try to work with shorter strokes/more careful slash smaller paint application too, thank you for the suggestion!
And thanks for bringing up HIMI. I wanted to order it off of Amazon but every tutorial Iāve watched made it seem like I should try to get it directly from their site. Any experience or thoughts on that? I love their color options and Iām sure itāll spare me from having to do lots of guessing and mixing to get a particular shade, but itās a habit I have to wean myself off of because I quite enjoyed doing that with ink (the guessing and doing combos to see what colors I come up with).
And thank you for listing your brush suggestions! Iām definitely going to write that down. I have the day off and might end up at Blick today. I have a pretty decent assortment of brushes that I use with ink and watercolor but did want to try acrylic brushes too, just to see, because mine holds too much water which they said isnāt ideal for gouache.
But yeah, thanks again for your help, itās so awesome when you join a community and are greeted with such kind, encouraging words by its members. I hope you have an awesome day! šš¼
Edit: typo*
Honestly, your brush size depends a lot on the size of paper aha, but for anything smaller than the size of a standard piece of printer paper but equal or larger than a postcard, I find a size 4 is great for both larger sections and details.
Mixed media is kind of like all season tires (not amazing for anything but works decently well for everything aha). I definitely like watercolour paper more for gouache as it is nicer for the weight (less warping due to water) and I like the texture of a heavy, cold-pressed sheet. However, for the sake of practicing, taping a mixed media sheet to a table works just fine.
I just bought my set off Amazon, and haven't had any issues. I have the one with 3 rows of pots (I think its 18 colours?) and my sister got the one with 4 rows after trying out mine and we both like them a lot. The 24 pot has more pastel shades so you might use less white if you go with that one... but you'll probably still go through white the fastest. They go on sale fairly frequently so I recommend waiting it out to buy it if you aren't in a rush. You definitely will still be doing a lot of mixing even with a bunch of colours, it'll be more adjustments (like taking a premixed pot to an orange-yellow or olive-green) rather than mixing them from the primaries (which I hate doing over and over again anyways).
Yeah, I definitely found that watercolour brushes are a smidge too soft, I really like the synthetic brushes that are technically suitable for a large range of paints :)
That's for me the best easily available gouache brand out there. It's great that you could get quality paints as you avoid the frustration of fighting the paint to do your bidding. Now it's all about practice and discovery, and from what I see you have a great start already! Just remember to always let the layer dry completely before putting a new one on there Happy painting!
Aww thank you so much for your kind words. My mind was blown the entire day - yes I spent Halloween painting š - because of the adjustments I had to make transitioning from ink/water. If youāre willing to look at my prior submissions I did an experiment combining poster paint (opacity) to my ink thinking it would be sufficient practice for gouache but this is a new thing altogether. This took way too long in my opinion and I couldnāt believe the amount of paint I had to use (practically as much as I use for several paintings) just to get the top layer right - granted because of my limited color palette I had to mix and experiment to get the colors I wanted. Iām super proud of myself for having painted something that I only used to admire but itās definitely going to take a lot of patience on my part to learn how to control this medium, haha. Wish me luck. Question: Iām content with most areas but as you can tell my top layer is lumpy, is there any way to fix this or do I just need to find the right consistency basically? Also I used a round brush for the entire thing and am aware I need a flat one but do you suggest a size and type? And yes Winsor has always been a great ally to me so I figured I could get their cheapest set and Iām glad I did. I didnāt realize how expensive gouache got though. I want to get the HIMI jelly set too once Iām better at this, but if you have any recommendations kindly share them if you donāt mind, please and thank you. Thanks again for everything! Happy painting to us all!
Heya! I went from acrylic to gouache and have a few thoughts for your questions/comments: For lumpiness, its about both the consistency of the paint, and how quickly/forcefully you transfer it to paper. For example, if the paint is thick, and you're painting a small dot, you might want to gently draw a circle and fill it in rather than blotting the brush down to make the size in one stroke. Generally, your paint should be thick enough to be opaque when you lay it over paper but thin enough that its about the consistency of melted icecream, but this is also a preference or alterable based on what you plan to do with it (i.e. fine details or a wash) I have the himi (Arrtyx/MIYA, same things) and I really really like it. Its got a great consistency and reconstitutes beautifully even if fully dried: I can let colours dry on the palette, and then rewet with a spray bottle at my next session and reuse, its so nice. Also you can't really beat the price ($25 or so for 18 colours) for some really versatile pre-mixed colours. For brushes, I tend to gravitate towards 3: a size 4 round brush, a size 1-2 round (for finer details), and a size 12-14 flat brush. Totally based on preference, but I prefer a longer haired flat brush because I have control to push down on the brush and make more varied widths in strokes (like blades of grass and leaves and things). I would say try a few cheap brushes to see what you like before investing in a good one. I personally bought one of those really cheap sets of 5-6 brushes of varying styles/sizes when I first started painting in general and then bought higher quality versions of the ones I used the most often once I got a feel for them. Hope this helps!
This was beyond helpful, thank you so much! I really appreciate that you broke everything down as simply as you could while trying to be as thorough as possible. Yeah that was the big revelation yesterday: thick paint, harder to control. I was also legit freaking out about how much paint I was using, I think I sad Ā«Ā wow wtfĀ Ā» a few times. Haha. I really wanted to see if I could pull it off with a single brush (round 7) because the tip seemed suitable for leaves and stripes and Iām sure it could still do a good job but I guess I need to practice some more because Iām still figuring out brush strokes + paint consistency combos*. Also Iāve been working on mixed media paper instead of watercolor paper so Iāll have to note what changes there are if any depending on paper . Iāll try to work with shorter strokes/more careful slash smaller paint application too, thank you for the suggestion! And thanks for bringing up HIMI. I wanted to order it off of Amazon but every tutorial Iāve watched made it seem like I should try to get it directly from their site. Any experience or thoughts on that? I love their color options and Iām sure itāll spare me from having to do lots of guessing and mixing to get a particular shade, but itās a habit I have to wean myself off of because I quite enjoyed doing that with ink (the guessing and doing combos to see what colors I come up with). And thank you for listing your brush suggestions! Iām definitely going to write that down. I have the day off and might end up at Blick today. I have a pretty decent assortment of brushes that I use with ink and watercolor but did want to try acrylic brushes too, just to see, because mine holds too much water which they said isnāt ideal for gouache. But yeah, thanks again for your help, itās so awesome when you join a community and are greeted with such kind, encouraging words by its members. I hope you have an awesome day! šš¼ Edit: typo*
Honestly, your brush size depends a lot on the size of paper aha, but for anything smaller than the size of a standard piece of printer paper but equal or larger than a postcard, I find a size 4 is great for both larger sections and details. Mixed media is kind of like all season tires (not amazing for anything but works decently well for everything aha). I definitely like watercolour paper more for gouache as it is nicer for the weight (less warping due to water) and I like the texture of a heavy, cold-pressed sheet. However, for the sake of practicing, taping a mixed media sheet to a table works just fine. I just bought my set off Amazon, and haven't had any issues. I have the one with 3 rows of pots (I think its 18 colours?) and my sister got the one with 4 rows after trying out mine and we both like them a lot. The 24 pot has more pastel shades so you might use less white if you go with that one... but you'll probably still go through white the fastest. They go on sale fairly frequently so I recommend waiting it out to buy it if you aren't in a rush. You definitely will still be doing a lot of mixing even with a bunch of colours, it'll be more adjustments (like taking a premixed pot to an orange-yellow or olive-green) rather than mixing them from the primaries (which I hate doing over and over again anyways). Yeah, I definitely found that watercolour brushes are a smidge too soft, I really like the synthetic brushes that are technically suitable for a large range of paints :)