A New Medium For Me, Gouache

My early ventures into painting were mostly transparent watercolor, over 20 years ago. I thought that was all I would ever work in, but I was ultimately dissatisfied with my work. I couldn't achieve what I wanted.

Around 8 years ago or so, I started working with oils and the transition was cumbersome for awhile, but I soon grew to love using them.
As a predominantly plein air painter, oils are the way to go for me. Watercolor was super tough in the field.

Over the past year or so, I've seen a lot of artists I follow using gouache and I really liked the looks of the work they were creating. But, I wasn't sure I wanted to try it just yet, at the time. I was invested in oils. But, recently, I couldn't resist the urge and went to a local art supply store in Chattanooga and bought myself some Winsor-Newton Designer Gouache. I went with a primary pallet plus white to get started. It's pretty much what I use in oils although I opted not to get cadmiums just yet.

The very same day I bought my paints, my local art group was having a get together at a local coffee shop to paint and socialize. So, that was the perfect time to try them out.

I was pretty happy with my first attempt at it in an old watercolor sketchbook I hadn't used since 2018, according to the date on the last image in it. I should have said earlier that I do still dabble with watercolor from time to time.

So, I have spent the last few days working in the studio from my reference photo folder on the computer and I really am diggin' this. 

All of these were done on Arches 140lb cold press watercolor paper cut to 4"x6".  These are turning out pretty well and now I'm left to think of how I want to display them. I don't want to go back to framing under glass like with watercolor. I'm thinking about adhering these to foam core and varnishing them to frame just like an oil painting.

Here are some of what I've done with my brand new medium. These will be available soon once I figure out the things I previously mentioned and price point.

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