Hi guys welcome back my name is Shayda Campbell and in today's tutorial we're
going to be working with gouache, gouache is a highly opaque watercolor medium it
has a wonderfully distinct look it's beautiful to work with and today I'm
going to be using it to create a painting that showcases all of the
wildflowers of Prince Edward Island
so this is the piece that I'm starting with
I've worked out a sort of cohesive design that depicts all of my favorite
Prince Edward Island wildflowers so I worked out in my sketchbook
I traced it on to a piece of tracing paper and then I've used graphite
transfer paper to transfer my trace onto a piece of hot pressed watercolor paper
and then I've also got my gouache I've got a set of 24 tubes these are from
Arteza I'll link them in the description below because they are a good value
gouache and yes let's talk a little more about hot pressed paper it's a
watercolor paper you don't often use it for watercolor because it's very dense
but because it is so dense it lacks much tooth or texture and it's beautifully
smooth and wonderful for using with gouache so now is definitely the time to
get out that pack of hot pressed paper that you are never sure when to use okay
and let's talk a little about the gouache itself it comes in these little
tubes when you squeeze it onto your palate it will be the consistency of
toothpaste but for you to use the gouache you really want it to be the
consistency of like a creamy soup so what I do is I'll just squeeze out all
of the colors that I'm going to be using I'm starting with greens for all the
plants stems so I'm you know gonna use green white maybe some blues some
yellows so I've got all the colors that I need here to mix up a whole variety of
shades of green and as I said for me to have a medium that I can paint with I
need it to be the consistency of soup so I'm mixing in a lot of water you do not
want to use gouache straight out of the tube it'll be way too thick to work with
now the magic of gouache is that you mix in all this water and it still stays
wonderfully opaque I just refer to gouache as the magic
paint because it it has this wonderful consistency once you work in that water
it has this smooth consistency it hits the paper and it's smooth and it flows
but it's very very opaque so you get this true color and it's just the most
wonderful sort of poster paint so you can see me here I've mixed up a dark
cool green I have some scrap paper or cardstock that I'm testing my colors on
so I always want to know that I've got the color right before I hit the page
and then I'm ready to take my round synthetic paintbrush here oh one word of
advice you should never mix your paints with the same paintbrush you're gonna
paint with but do as I say not as I do because you want a nice clean paintbrush
and you can see here as I begin to paint on my piece of hot press watercolor
paper that the paint just flows on to the page I'm using a nylon round brush
so I'm able to use the tip of the brush to sort of outline my shapes and and get
a nice detail of the stem or the shape of the leaf and then I'm able to use the
belly or the body of the brush to really let loose some of the color that's
contained within my paintbrush that I'm holding in my brush and I'm able to lay
down lots of this wonderfully opaque paint the paint may look like it's not
one shade when it hits the page but that's just because it's drying and as
it dries it will dry slightly lighter and it dries to one true color so it's
really nice you get this beautiful true color and you can see here I've moved on
to the leaves of the Lupin and I'm just painting half of each leaf and that's so
that I get a nice contrast I'll use a darker green later on and it'll show
sort of a nice detail in the leaf if you haven't tried gouache before I can't
recommend it enough it's not expensive these Arteza ones are a good price as
I said I'll link them in the description below you mix in lots of water so your
paint goes a long way it hits the page and it's beautifully opaque it's smooth
it's easy to work with and I think because of the way
that goueache is you're less likely to blend it on the page and at least the way that
I was taught to use quash in high school is sort of to lay down one color and
then to do what I'm doing here to come back in later once it's dried and use
another color and so you can see here I'm using this minty blue to add some
veining to the leaves of these roses and so I'm not blending as I paint I'm
laying down one color wait for it to dry then come back in with another color so
I did have a lot of fun doing this painting here with the leaves of the
Lupin you can see I'm doing the same thing I'm coming back in with a second
color so I don't have to worry about blending or shading I'm treating it very
much like a coloring book and I'm painting each section of my painting one
by one and sort of taking things slow and easy now it's very difficult to talk
about gouache or even think about gouache without talking about
Anna Rifle Bond and you probably are familiar with her artwork and illustration if you've
been in any book shop or stationery shop in the last few years
Anna is the woman behind Rifle Paper Company and her artwork is done with
gouache she does these very flat graphic sort of vintage e florals and people and
if you look up Rifle Paper Co I'm sure you'll recognize the works so even when
I was painting in gouache it's hard to sort of get her artwork out of your head
but the way she approaches gouache is sort of the typical way to use it where
you're building color and detail layer by layer as opposed to doing a lot of
blending well I thought it was about time for me to show you my crazy green
palette I just like to work with one color at a time that way I can mix up a
whole bunch of different greens do all the plants on the page and then I'll
wash the palette take a little moment cleanup switch my water really rinse my
brushes and then now I'm able to come back in and I don't have to worry about
kind of getting murky yellows or something when I go to paint the flower
petals so here I've mixed up a nice light yellow with lots of white in it
and I'm going to start painting my Marsh marigolds these are typical
wildflowers in the bogs and marshes on Prince Edward Island and they're very
cute and again I'm just doing what I did with the Greens starting with one color
so a light yellow and then I'll come back in once it has dried and add some
darker yellow add some detail some shading here I'm also taking that yellow
and doing all the Centers of the little blue asters I've mixed up a brown and
I'm doing the stem of my Lupin and then it's getting interesting because I'm
about to mix up a nice purple and start painting some of these lupins and the
Lupin is sort of like our claim to fame here in Prince Edward Island if you come
here in June there are fields just full of beautiful wild lupins and they're
all pink and purple and white it's quite something to see and you'll definitely
see them on my Instagram come this spring so again I know I sound like a broken
record but I'm just taking that purple one colour painting in all the petals
and then I'll go back in later and add a different shade of purple for the blue
asters I'm doing this very very light periwinkle and I'm just concentrating on
how I'm using my brush I guess especially for a flower like an aster or
a daisy it's really up to you to use your brushstroke to get the look of
those petals right so thinking about how you're using the brush if you do use a
nylon round pointed brush like me you're able to really use the tip of the brush
for the details the belly or the body of the brush for sort of laying down more
color and here I'm coming back in adding some light purple petals to my Lupin
once that's done I'll add a little darker purple to the aster and so on and
so on and that's sort of my favorite way to work with gouache is to just let one
layer dry build up the next layer you know add some details from shadow and
it's actually a really I think approachable and easy way to do things
because you're not blending you're not sort of getting overwhelmed with trying
to shade perfectly and mixing all these paints it's
one color at a time and you can see here I'm just going forward and adding more
color I've got my wild roses my lady slipper which is sort of a funny-looking
flower but that is our provincial wild flower and yeah I'm just gonna continue
to work with my gouache until my piece is all done and that's what it looked
like when it was all finished I've added many layers to add detail I did do maybe
just a little bit of shading but otherwise it was one layer at a time and
this piece I'm actually going to turn into a print and have it in the shop
this summer so I'm excited about that remember I have a little seasonal gift
shop here on Prince Edward Island it's just open June through September and so
this will be one of the things that you could potentially purchase if you happen
to stop by if you happen to be in the neighborhood of the Canadian Maritimes
well thank you guys so much for watching today I hope you enjoyed learning a
little about wash I absolutely love this medium if you're interested in the paint
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