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WIP - Experimenting with Gouache

Hello and happy Wednesday! This week, I'm playing with my new set of Holbein gouache. I picked up a small set of 12 colors on amazon earlier this year and I've been dabbling with it. If you've never painted with gouache, it's like a cross between watercolor and acrylic paint. It's water based and blendable like watercolor and acrylic. You can use it like watercolor and create washes and the fun watercolor "bloom" effect. You can also let it dry and layer it like acrylic paint, which is something I need to work on (I still have a love/hate relationship with acrylic paint...)

Here's my latest attempt to use gouache and layer.  My biggest challenge is trying to achieve a balance with the water-to-paint ratio. Too much water and the paint is thin and soupy like watercolors (not necessarily a bad thing, but not the effect I wanted.) Not enough water, and the paint doesn't spread well. Anyone have any tips they can offer me?

Looks like I will need to play and experiment a bit more!

 

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