Although I primarily work in watercolour or perhaps even more in Digital illustration these days (thank you for existing iPad!), I wanted to flex a little painting muscle and whip out my Holbein Acryla Gouaches. These babies pack a PUNCH in colour. They’re opaque, but can be watered down, and act much more like an acrylic paint than any gouache I’ve ever met. I had a canvas that I wanted to paint over, so I took out the colours and asked my wonderful husband Ben which ones I should use.

Ben selected Yellow, Mint Green, Navy Blue and Coral Red. I was scared at first - these aren’t colours I normally use, but at the same time it kind of worked. I feel like when I’m stuck with a blank canvas or page, I reach out to Ben or a lovely creative friend to give me some parameters to work within. It gives me a narrowed focus and something to work towards without getting overwhelmed.

I started blocking in colours with a round brush (mistake!) and quickly switched to a square/flat brush and started making marks that blended the colours into each other. The white paint underneath blended them further which I really enjoyed. Once it was semi dry, I washed it over with a white acrylic watered down. This muted everything and created a lot of movement around the canvas.

Something to note about these sweet paints is that this gouache is not wettable again. Normally, gouache is like an opaque watercolour that can be squeezed out onto a palette and come back to in the future. NOT THESE. I REPEAT NOT THESE. They are much more like acrylic paint than gouache. I remember seeing Holbein actual real deal Gouache in the USA a few years ago in the same colour range as these but they were re-wettable and darn I wish I had those.

To try and avoid the drying out, I mix paints in recycled plastic containers and pop the lid on afterwards. This doesn’t always work but its much better than just washing it down the sink. Everyone has plastic containers from take aways or items from the grocery stores and this is a nice easy way to give them a new life while they protect your paint. If anyone else has another way to keep these babies from drying out - please let me know!

Here’s a little close up of some messy paint for you. Even this looks like a bit of an art work!

I usually have some white acrylic paint on hand to mix with my Holbein Acryla Gouache to make the colours more muted and work them into different tones.

Have you used these little tubes of heaven before? Do you want to? If you have any questions, pop them below!