Tutorial Gouache: Guía básica para aprender a pintar desde cero

Adéntrate en el mundo de la ilustración en gouache con esta guía básica de trazos, pinceles y tonalidades.

Gouache is a type of paint that, due to its characteristics, is very similar to watercolor and acrylic, with the particularity that its opacity, flexibility and solubility make it ideal for those looking to play with different tones and details in layers.

Julia Bereciartu (@julia_bereciartu), who has worked for publishers such as Alfaguara, SM, Astronave, Quarto Books, Bloomsbury, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Penguin Kids, Simon & Schuster, or Little Brown, and companies such as Google, Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon, is specialist in this technique, and today he shares with you a basic guide on brushes, strokes and tones, so that you can enter the world of gouache in a simple and practical way.

Enjoy it in the following video!

MATERIALS:

- Gouache paint tubes
- Round tip brush
- Cat's Tongue Tip Brush
- Oval/flat brush

Watercolor and acrylic: the best of both worlds

Gouache combines the advantages of these two materials, as it is soluble in water, like watercolor, at the same time that it allows you to handle extremely intense tones, like acrylic. Julia recommends that, to start, you play with intensities and discover the full tonal potential of this material.

The brushes

To work with gouache, Julia prefers to use synthetic brushes, as they have a greater capacity to withstand friction, so their tips are less damaged. Try different strokes using each of the brushes suggested in this tutorial.

1. Round tip brush

It is used to create everything from very fine lines to thick lines, as well as to give effects and add details to illustrations. Julia uses them mainly to outline the shapes of her characters, but she is also ideal for creating dry painting effects—although, for the latter, she recommends using old brushes to enhance the effect.

2. Flat oval tip brush

These are perfect for creating heterogeneous pictorial effects, because when used by changing the direction of the brush strokes, surfaces with character and different tones are created. In addition, when used with slightly more diluted paint you can create effects very similar to those of watercolor.

3. Cat's tongue tip brush

This brush is very versatile as it allows you to create very defined edges, but it has so much paint retention capacity that it can also be used to paint large areas uniformly.

Julia reminds you that, as gouache dries, it tends to darken, generating a completely matte effect, so it is recommended that you make drying samples of the paint that you will use in your projects.

Finally, to test the effects of gouache when it is more or less diluted, Julia suggests that you work on an exercise, painting the same figure with different concentrations of the material. She begins with the round-tipped brush, which allows establishing solid, well-defined layers of paint, to make the central shape.

Then, repeat the process but adding more water to the gouache, so you can contrast the two results. Also add the details with another color, testing the effect of using different brushes.

If you liked this tutorial, you want to take your first steps into editorial illustration and master this painting technique, don't miss the course Editorial illustration of characters in gouache, by Julia Bereciartu.

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