How to Keep Gouache Moist with Vicki McGrath
Like acrylic, gouache dries quickly.
However unlike acrylic, it can be reconstituted with water….up to a point.
Because of these two things, artist Vicki McGrath (Ep.84) always has an eye on the needs of her palette.
Here’s how she keeps her paints moist and workable.
First, she has an airtight Modelo palette. This means when she's done with a painting session, she can close it up and seal it. This helps lock in moisture and prevents her paints from drying out quicker than they have to.
Second, she is spritzing her paints constantly. This introduces additional moisture into her paints and again, slows the drying out.
Third, every couple of days she adds new paints or introduces more water, then gives it a stir. This isn’t a ton of water. She just adds a few spritzes and then with a kebab stick, stirs it. She will do the same stir when she adds new paints.
Fourth, she paints consistently. Even with spritzing and an airtight palette, if McGrath left her paints for a month, they’d be dry. By painting consistently, she is adding moisture to her paints with her brush. This, along with the other palette management, helps keep her paints moist and ready to use.
Put it to Practice:
If your paints seem to be drying out, first look at how you're storing your clean colors out of the tubes.
This may be in a palette or bead box or some other thing. How does it help (or hinder) keeping your paints moist? What can you do to improve that?
Maybe you need to try a different palette but it could be something as simple as storing them in the refrigerator or placing them inside a ziploc bag and in a drawer (away from the sun.)
Second, look at how often you are attending to your pigments either through the great mid week stir or using those pigments to paint. Each time you paint, you are reintroducing moisture through your brush. Which in turn helps them stay moist.
It can take some trial and error to find the right set up to keep your paints moist. And occasionally, either because you left your palette open or walked away from gouache for a few weeks while traveling, you’ll need to toss the dry paint and start again. Painting will feel way way better when you do.