I always thought gouache was cheaper watercolor. However I learned recently that it is a thicker version of watercolor. Therefore it covers faster and more opaque, preventing the paper from coming through. This makes it ideal for painting from life and painting “en plein air,” or painting landscapes outdoors.
I like how gouache can be used in so many different ways. The first time I used it was in a fashion drawing class, to quickly render the texture of clothing when painting live models.
Here are a few gouache sketches I did during our drawing time in class:
In the second one, I was really trying to work with layering. You have to work quickly otherwise it will look too outlined.
Apparently gouache used to be used by comic book artists and poster designers which I thought was a happy coincidence.
Here are a couple very different examples I found on a quick google search:
gouache by Elvgren
They have very different applications and textures, but both are still beautiful.
I used gouache and our last poster assignment, which was designing a poster based on a quote for a child’s room. I narrowed the target audience to a child’s room who is under one year old. This was a good place to use gouache. For one, because it is softer and lends itself to an infant’s room better. And another, I thought parents of young children are now so discerning of what they expose their child to, and something that is hand-made is appreciated more now.
First I drew silhouettes of my friends as a reference. That was fun.
Then I did a few rounds with gouache. I tried to do a couple layers to give them depths of colors and tints.
However I did not think it was strong enough to stand on its own so I laid it over a vector illustration of the same design.
Woah, colors are crazy off! But you get the point. I also added a background color in indesign in order to activate the negative space a little more.
So the green is more blue in real life. In any case, I want to keep using gouache, it seems I have barely scratched the surface of what it can do.
I worked with a photography student, Lou Daprile to shoot the West Seattle Tool Library. She did a great job so I have been adding those photos in. I have been working a lot on this page, and fiddled around a lot with the “Large Selection of Tools” section. I am not getting it to look quite what I had envisioned. So I am taking a step back from that and will create some of the other assets. I started with the 3 steps and made little doodles of each one. This gives that hand-made, approachable feeling. I will do a similar style for the map as well as the donate sections. I am aiming to get the homepage done this week and finish up the other pages the following week.
