A Mountain of Gouache

My mountain of gouache, as you can see the vast majority of my paints are now Turner gouache.

Hi again dear reader. Lets talk gouache.

Being of my favourite mediums I have tried several gouaches and a variety of brands including W&N, Liquitex, Holbein, Talens and Turner paints.

There are two different types of gouache, regular and acrylic gouache. The main difference being that regular gouache can be reactivated with water and acrylic gouache is permanent when it’s dried. Among the ones I have tried, my favourite would have to be the Turner Acrylic gouaches which I enjoy for their opacity, colour range (including iridescent colours!), amount per tube, and consistency.

I found that I enjoyed the Turner line of gouache over the other brands but because of how much more paint comes in a tube compared to most other brands. They are totally free of heavy metals (which I love) and are made in Japan, as are many of the best and most coveted art supplies. Their colours are lightfast, high quality, and they carry an incredible range of colour (236 colours according to their website… Learning this puts my collection to shame).

I also found I generally prefer an acrylic gouache because it dries down permanently as I like to layer and sometimes a regular gouache can muddy my colours from reactivating them the more I work.

I picked up a solid colour range and used them to paint all the Demetres Pint flavours as well as my first book cover. I actually began using Holbein in college when I found a tube of Titanium white laying around in the halls of Sheridan. I liked it for its opacity but when I went to find more of it at an art store, I realized as a student I simply couldn’t afford it or the W&N gouache yet.

I bought some Talens goauche and thought the price matched the paint quality, it was a sticky consistency and the colours weren’t what I wanted them to be. I found it especially hard going from a higher quality paint to a lower grade one.

So then I upgraded to Liquitex which I found was better colour-wise but the consistency was too runny and wet for my liking. It was a goldilocks moment for sure. Too expensive, too sticky, and then too runny.

I then decided to try the Turner brand which I picked up from Above Ground Art Supplies and realized quickly they were my favourite all around. They were just right for me. I usually prefer using them on gessoed wood or on canvas pad (paper with canvas texture, making it easier to scan).

Image credit to Jerrys Artarama

You can also pick up different mediums such as retarder to make them last longer on the palette or the glass primer use on non-porous surfaces to name a few!

I hope you get to try some Turner gouache soon as I really recommend it. But everyone has different opinions and favourites of course.

Thank you for reading!