Gettin' Sketchy LIVE: Candle Painting with Gouache
About Gettin' Sketchy...
Gettin’ Sketchy Live is an original live broadcast. The goal is produce a sketch within 45 minutes while providing art instruction and entertainment. In this season, Matt and Ashley choose their own subjects and materials. Each episode is a new adventure with different subjects and drawing media.
This Episode...
In this live painting lesson, Matt will have 45 minutes to paint a candle with gouache. This painting is created on black watercolor paper with opaque watercolor. Learn how to work on black watercolor paper and how to paint with gouache.
About Goauche
Gouache is a versatile and expressive painting medium that bridges the gap between watercolor and acrylic. Like watercolor, it is water-based and can be reactivated after drying, but unlike watercolor, gouache contains a higher concentration of pigment and often includes an added chalk or white pigment. This gives gouache its signature opacity and matte finish, allowing artists to paint both light and dark passages with confidence.
One of gouache’s greatest strengths is its ability to layer. Because it is opaque, lighter colors can be painted over darker ones, making it ideal for corrections and adjustments. This quality allows artists to work from dark to light or light to dark, offering flexibility that is not always possible with traditional watercolor. Gouache also excels at creating flat, even areas of color, which makes it a popular choice for illustration, design, and stylized painting.
At the same time, gouache can be thinned with water to behave much like watercolor. When diluted, it produces transparent washes that are perfect for underpainting, subtle transitions, and atmospheric effects. This dual nature allows artists to combine loose, painterly passages with precise, controlled details in the same artwork.
Gouache dries quickly to a soft, velvety surface that reduces glare, making it especially appealing for scanning and reproduction. Colors may appear slightly darker when wet and lighter when dry, so learning to anticipate these shifts is part of mastering the medium.
Whether used for expressive sketches, detailed studies, or finished paintings, gouache offers a balance of control and spontaneity. Its rich color, adaptability, and forgiving nature make it an excellent medium for artists of all experience levels.
Resources for this Lesson...
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References
Here's what you'll need...
- Winsor and Newton Designer's Gouache
- Black Watercolor Paper
- Graphite Pencil
- Brushes
(Disclosure: Links to art materials are affiliate links which means we make a small commission if you purchase at no additional cost to you.)
Founder of The Virtual Instructor, artist and teacher. Matt makes learning art easy to understand and enjoyable.