O Gouache, most versatile of mediums, bestow upon me the strength to remain calm and encouraged despite the fact that you frustrate me daily.
*sigh*
Yesterday I spent 2 or 3 hours working and reworking a simple ocean background. The gouache wasn’t behaving. Or maybe I just wasn’t handling it properly. But it brought to my attention that although gouache can be used on just about anything, not all supports are created equal. I was able to spend hours reworking because my support could handle a lot of abuse.
I’ve used gouache on a bunch of different supports. Specifically, nine, with one waiting in the wings for its debut. Ten supports are far too many to rate in one blog entry, so this week you get half of them, hence the “Part 1.” I won’t go into too much detail here, so if you want more info, let me know!
First: Watercolor papers. Most of the advice you’ll find says to start off with watercolor paper. Good advice, but “watercolor paper” has a bunch of variation. I’ve tried three kinds.
Strathmore 400 Series Cold Press: I’ve only tried the blocks. They come in weird sizes, like 13×17″. They’re toothy and durable. The surface is fairly rough, and the gouache tends to puddle and granulate if too wet. It scrubs well, and can take a fair amount of abuse. The paper buckles even in block form. Strathmore’s Aquarius II paper is smoother and more flexible, but although the packaging says you don’t need to stretch it… it still buckles under a wash.
Work on 400 Series
Work on Aquarius
Arches Cold Press Cotton Rag: This paper holds gouache very well. I toned a piece months ago, and it stayed relatively flat. I painted over it with great success. I had to lift a few times to fix mistakes, and the toning didn’t lift, just the new paint. I didn’t scrub much because of the toning, but I bet the paper would handle it well. My only complaint is that it buckled a bunch… but then again, I didn’t stretch it first.
Sennelier Hot Press Cotton Rag: Another great gouache support. It’s a verrry smooth paper. I have a small landscape-shaped block, and although I used washes and wet-on-wet, it didn’t buckle at all. The gouache responds very well to brushwork on this paper – it blends more than lifts, which is a breath of fresh air. I haven’t found a downside to this one yet.
Work on Sennelier Hot Press
Bristol Board: I’ve worked on Strathmore 300 and 400 vellum and smooth. They’re both very smooth surfaces, and work well with one opaque application of gouache. The final result looks very smooth and velvety. Bristol board can’t handle washes or large applications of color – it just curls up. Because of this, I’ve only done a few color tests on it, so I don’t have any finished works to show you.
Crescent Illustration Board: Make sure you check out the link for this one. It is an awesome matrix of all of Crescent’s flavors of illo board and their compatible media. I have used #300 and #1. The #300 is single-sided, and it is nice and sturdy. It reworks pretty well, but I didn’t test its scrubbing capability. It warped severely under a wash, but didn’t buckle. The #1 is excellent. It warps just a tiny bit. It’s very thick, so it can handle a lot. It reworks very well. Crescent rates these boards “marginal performance” with watercolor and gouache, but in my opinion, the #1 is better than the #300, and both are pretty darn good. Plus, the #1 comes in 22×30″ sheets that you can cut to whatever size you like.
Well, that’s it for this week. I’ll post “Part 2” next month.
Thank you. This is a very informative article. Sue