Art Supplies
Acrylic, watercolor or gouache: which paint to start with
Three water-based paints, three very different personalities. Here is how each one behaves on the page, so you can pick the one that fits how you like to work.
By Spunky Craft Co.
Watercolor: thin, glowing and a little unpredictable
Watercolor is made to be spread thin, so light passes through the paint and the white of the paper does the brightening. You lighten a color with more water, not with white paint, and you generally work from light to dark, since a pale wash laid over a darker one tends to disappear. Dried watercolor can usually be loosened again with a wet brush, which is handy for softening edges but means a new layer can lift the one below. Use paper made for watercolor; it is built to take a lot of water without rippling.
Gouache: watercolor's opaque cousin
Gouache shares watercolor's gum arabic binder but carries a heavier load of pigment, so it dries to a flat, matte, opaque finish. That makes it a good choice for crisp shapes, illustration and lettering, and it can be mixed into the same painting as watercolor. You lighten gouache by adding white rather than water. Like watercolor, it can generally be rewet once dry, so you can fix a spot later, but heavy layering takes a light touch or the color underneath will mix in.
Acrylic: fast, tough and permanent
Acrylic uses a plastic polymer binder and dries to a waterproof finish. Once a layer is dry you can paint right over it without disturbing it, but you cannot rewet it to rework an edge. That permanence suits bold, opaque layers and surfaces beyond paper, like canvas and wood. It also makes brush care important: rinse brushes in mild soap and water before the paint dries, because dried acrylic sets hard in the bristles. Winsor & Newton also notes that acrylic can damage natural sable brushes, so many painters keep a set of synthetic brushes for it.