Reply To: Need Suggestion About Water Colour Painting

[Sandra Strait]

Hmmm.  Not sure why my replies aren’t showing up here.  You said ‘ I also heard that gouache ones are mixture of both acrylic and water paints.  Gouache has some of the same characteristics of both acrylic paint and watercolor paint, but they aren’t a mix of both.

There are two kinds of gouache.  One is actually a watercolor and one is actually acrylic paint.  When they dry, they look very much alike. The acrylic paint version is called Acryla Gouache or Acrylic Gouache. The more traditional gouache (which has been around since Egyptian times) is called gouache, Designer’s gouache and Artist’s gouache.

I did a write-up a while back that explains the differences and what you can expect from each kind. You can find it on my Life Imitates Doodles blog.  It isn’t a review, but an explanation of the different kinds of gouache.  It’s more important that you know which type than which brand.

Honestly, for traditional gouache, any of the professional brands would work for you.  Holbein, M. Graham, Schmincke, Winsor & Newton are all fantastic.  Da Vinci is working on a new formulation that I think is going to be wonderful, but I’m not sure when it will be available.

But even the most wonderful brands will have a learning curve.