One of the mediums that we have tried in art school is gouache, which we used sort of like an intro to paints. I remember I really liked using it cos it felt like an acrylic but like an oil at the same time since you can blend easily with them.

They are mostly used on paper. Quite similar to watercolors although they are opaque and are treated as acrylics I guess.

I only used them before very briefly since we immediately moved on to acrylics so I never really got to practice it. I wanted to use paint on my sketchpad for studies to further improve my techniques and because they are easier for me to do (instead of markers or colored pencils).

This brand called Holbein is regarded as one of the nice gouache brands out there according to the internet haha. I got the artist grade gouache instead of the cheaper ones so there will be less adjustments since my paints are mostly artist grade.

If you're asking what the difference in artist grades and studio grades (the ones that are cheaper), the artist grades have a lot more pigment than the latter. So you don't need to use a lot of paint to get the color you want to achieve. For the studio ones, you might have to layer a lot and sometimes you even need to watch out for the longevity of the paint - some (if not most) of them become less vivid the moment it dries. So mixing would be quite hard if I keep on switching to studio and artist grade paints.

Here are the swatches for the colors. I was soooo excited to see how pigmented they are. Just look at that flame red. Dayum!

Trying them out

I'm gonna use this image that I took in Phuket, Thailand as a reference.

I'm gonna be using gouache mostly on my sketchpad. So hopefully I can fill my pad up lol. I have washi tapes on the border for clean lines later on.

I forgot how to use them actually so there was a bit of adjustment period. I was using the paint thinly in the beginning, like watercolors. Given how tiny the container paint is, my brain just automatically went on saving mode haha.

I'm not good at using purples as shadows yet haha but I still liked the unnatural look it gave anyway.

The nice thing about gouache is how I can reactivate the paint which allows me to blend a bit if I want to. I started using less water though cos my sketchpad is not built for watercolors so it started warping a bit.

I really love how vibrant the paint is though. Truly a good paint.

I think it might be that I haven't used it correctly yet but I felt the white gouache is not that white/powerful? I find myself grabbing more white to lighten the colors or to just paint white on top of the colors. If you also look at the containers, the white was tinier compared to the others... I don't know why haha.

And it's done!

I feel like I'm using watercolor in a way that it made me more careful of placing the colors than I would with acrylics. I can layer easily on acrylics as many as I like but on gouache it feels "limited". I like it though and I can do my studies and keep them there for a long time (that it doesn't fade easily after years).

I love the vividness and how easy to use this gouache is though. It's also not too off from the color when it dries (it goes a bit lighter when dry) so that's a nice thing as well. Definitely amazing how one tiny bit of the paint is all you need to get that vividness though. Overall, this gouache is worth the purchase.