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Take your art in a bold new direction—go gouache! In Creative Gouache, artist Ruth Wilshaw shares her step-by-step techniques for creating brilliantly vibrant effects with this easy-to-master medium, a perfect companion for transparent watercolor.
In this comprehensive guide to gouache, you’ll:
- Get an overview of essential materials and surfaces.
- Learn basic handling and coloring-mixing techniques, including layering, creating blends, and adjusting opacity, plus troubleshooting tips for common challenges, such as dealing with shifts in color and value from wet to dry.
- Explore how to paint fun, simple motifs, flowers, butterflies, landscapes, and lettering.
- Discover fun gouache techniques, such as adding texture and painting gradients and blends.
- Learn how to incorporate other mediums with gouache, including paint pens, colored pencil, and watercolor.
- Use what you learn to create inspiring projects such as dimensional artwork, clay décor pieces, and cheerful banners.
See what you can create with gorgeous, wall-to-wall color with Creative Gouache!
Perfect for creative beginners, the books in the Art for Modern Makers series take a fun, practical approach to learning about and working with paints and other art mediums to create beautiful DIY projects and crafts.
List of contents
Introduction
1 ESSENTIAL SUPPLIES
Types of gouache, paper, brushes, other materials, alternative surfaces, and protecting gouache
2 BASIC TECHNIQUES
The unusual properties of gouache, layering, finding the perfect consistency, and blending
3 INSPIRED BY NATURE
4 LANDSCAPES
5 LETTERING
6 GOUACHE AND MIXED MEDIA
7 PROJECTS
Bullet Journal Spread
Wrapping Paper and Gift Tag
Notebook Cover
Leaf Triptych
Night Garden Dimensional Painting
Butterfly Case
Campfire Panel
Celebration Garland
Painted Jewelry Dish
TEMPLATES
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
INDEX
About the author
Ruth Wilshaw is a self-taught gouache artist who loves to encourage others to give this quirky medium a go. She enjoys painting modern landscapes and creating art inspired by nature. Ruth shares tutorials and videos with her growing number of fans and followers on Instagram and YouTube, giving tips and advice on painting with gouache for artists of all levels, especially beginners. Her videos have been viewed more than 10 million times. Ruth lives in the United Kingdom.
Instagram: instagram.com/ruthwilshaw
YouTube: youtube.com/c/RuthWilshaw/videos
Website: moderngouache.com
Summary
Creative Gouache presents beginner tutorials for working with gouache—transparent watercolor’s opaque sister—showing how to paint bright, bold, modern effects, florals, and motifs, and combine it with other mediums.
