Eversince I saw some sketches done in gouache, I had wanted to try working with this medium. During one of those crazy Dick Blick internet offers, I bought a starter set of Holbein Artists’ Gouache. When it arrived in the mail, I began squeezing them into half-pans that I had setup in a metal palette box. Nearly all of Holbein’s gouache are convenient colors with moderate to poor lightfastness. Some of the colors are dyes, not pigments. This fact didn’t bother me much because I just wanted to use them for sketches.
After doing a quick color chart, I put the gouache away. When I opened my metal box a few days later, I was dismayed. The Holbein gouache had cracked and crumbled in the half pans. I was rather upset by this … obviously I needed to squeeze out fresh color everytime I wanted to paint, which is to me, an inconvenience. The gouache had noticeable chalkiness to it when dry. Needless to say, I was rather disappointed with Holbein Artists’ Gouache.
After researching about gouache brands in the internet, I came upon Roz Stendahl’s blog where she wrote about how wonderful Schmincke gouaches are. There was one problem though …. those tubes are expensive 
! I couldn’t justify buying them. I was determined to use up the remaining ones from Holbein.
Then a few weeks ago, I came across a seller in the UK selling Schmincke gouaches on eBay at very, very discounted prices. He had all the colors I wanted! The gouaches must’ve been from an old stock somewhere, but for the purpose of doing sketches, they should be fine. I bought them, of course! 
They came in the mail last week:
My Schmincke gouache colors, L-R: Lemon Yellow, Indian Yellow, Vermillion Tone, Purple Magenta, Quinacridone Violet, Ultramarine Deep, Helio Blue, Helio Green Bluish.
I bought single pigment paints, minus the earth colors. My usual earth threesome (raw sienna, burnt sienna and burnt umber) are all convenient mixes in Schminke’s gouache line, so I avoided them. I’ve since emptied my metal palette box containing my Holbein paints, and filled them with my Schmincke paints in full pans. The seller didn’t have Titanium White, so I’m using Winsor & Newton’s gouache in Permanent White at the moment.
I’ve put the colors to the test a few nights ago by painting a picture of my eldest boy:
Experimenting with Schmincke gouache.
The verdict? The colors are vibrant and oh so smooth. None of the chalkiness I’ve experienced with Holbein. Good news is that it has been days since I’ve squeezed them in the full pans, and so far, no cracking and crumbling issues.
Here’s the finished version of my small painting:
'Perfect Combo Kid', gouache on 6" x 9" Canson Montval cold-pressed paper.
I’m going to experiment on color combinations and mixes of my Schmincke palette next. Will post my findings soon!
By the way, an online art supplier, Jackson’s in the UK, where I sometimes buy products from, sells Schmincke gouache cheaper than the US. Their online store is rather quirky and takes sometime to get used to though, but be sure to click on their ‘Tax Free Shopping for Non-EU Customers” banner if you decide to purchase from them. This will automatically deduct the Value Added Tax (VAT) from their prices.
As always, you can also find these paints at Blick Art Materials.
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