Gouache & Tempera
Opaque watercolor paint, often used for quick sketches or illustration work because of its strong matte color and quick drying time. Traditional gouache can be thinned with water and is rewettable.
Acrylic gouache is a velvety-matte acrylic paint. It is not rewettable, does not retain brushmarks, and is fast drying.
Traditional gouache is opaque watercolor. The colors are rewettable and dry to a smooth, velvety-matte finish.
Tempera is a clear, bright water-based paint. Tempera is best applied in thin layers to a rigid surface, such as wood.
What is Gouache and Tempera?
Gouache and Tempera are two painting mediums that are lesser known than oil, watercolor or acrylic, but are just as interesting to work with. Let’s start with a few important distinctions: Acrylic gouache and traditional gouache are not the same paint. While traditional gouache is compared to opaque watercolor paint and is rewettable, acrylic gouache is a matte, fluid acrylic paint, and is waterproof once dry.
Traditional gouache can be used on its own, or combined with transparent watercolor. Chinese white is added to pigments in order to create the opacity. Traditional gum arabic gouache is best applied to watercolor paper with watercolor brushes - sable or synthetic. At Jackson’s, we offer a great variety of gouache by leading brands including Daniel Smith, Holbein, Schmincke, Winsor & Newton, and many more.
Fast-drying, non-rewettable and with a matte, velvet-like finish, acrylic gouache can be applied to paper, wood, plastic and metal. It can be extended and altered using regular acrylic paint mediums, and thinned with water. Use the same natural and synthetic acrylic paint brushes you would use for regular acrylic paint. Because acrylic gouache is the perfect medium for creating flat layers of brilliant matte color, it’s often found in the studios of designers and illustrators.
Tempera is a name that refers to pigment suspended in a binder that mixes with water. The best known is egg tempera, which is available at Jackson’s and manufactured by Sennelier. With a binder made of egg yolk, egg tempera is very fast drying. It is most commonly associated with religious frescoes and icon painting from the Byzantine and Renaissance periods. While it has excellent lightfastness (paintings are proven to last hundreds of years), it is relatively inflexible, and should only be applied to rigid surfaces to avoid cracking of the paint. Egg Tempera should not be confused with poster paint, which is sometimes known as ‘Tempera’ in the United States.
If you want to try painting with egg tempera, we supply the starter tempera set by Sennelier. Egg yolk can be added to extend the colors, and they can be applied using fine watercolor brushes. They adhere best to wood panels that have been primed with authentic gesso, made with rabbit skin glue.