Vidhi Khandelwal - Painting Florals with Gouache: An Introduction to Creating Beautiful Botanical Artwork

This book is dedicated to my mom, who inspired me to take up the paintbrush at a very young age.

Hi, my name is Vidhi, and I am extremely excited to share my gouache painting journey with you.

Weve all painted with one medium or another at some point in our life, and whether you are familiar with gouache or not, I am sure this book will help you get to know the paint better, create wonderful floral artworks and even help you discover your own gouache style. This book consists of twenty different floral projects, each of which has illustrated step-by-step instructions along with sketches in the back of the book for tracing my designs onto your own watercolor paper.

I think its safe to say that learning how to paint with gouache changed my life and opened up a whole new world of possibilities. It is the most versatile medium I have worked with, and I got hooked on it in no time. I still sometimes wonder how I spent the first twenty-three years of my life without having worked with gouache at all.

I have been painting for as long as I can remember, thanks to my mother who first taught me how to draw and color and got me excited about painting at a very early age. All through school, I would wait for exams to be over and summer break to begin so that I could start painting.

I love combining botanical illustrations, hand lettering and muted colors. I am also a big fan of the traditional painting process; theres something exciting about an actual brush hitting the paper and not knowing how the final strokes might turn out.

In the beginning, I would try my hand at anything that would come my way, and perhaps by process of elimination, I came to the realization that I loved painting florals. Nature has been the biggest source of inspiration for me with a huge variety of forms and colors to derive inspiration from. No two flowers or leaves are the same, and the same plant or flower can be painted in many different ways depending upon what kind of painting you are seeking. It also lets you explore your own style at every level, whether you are a beginner or a trained artist. If you want to paint a flower green or a leaf black, no one is going to call it wrong, and thats the beauty of nature around us.

Soon, my love for florals and the desire to keep painting turned into a career, and since then I have worked with a number of brands across the world, started my brand The Ink Bucket, painted murals, organized workshops and now turned my dream of writing a book into reality.

Painting with gouache is a form of therapy for me. I would often put on my favorite show on Netflix, have a cup of tea by my side and get lost in color mixing and painting. Having a process in place and enjoying it to the core has been an incredibly rewarding experience for me.

If you are a beginner, I want you to remember that mistakes are a part of the process and there is no escaping them. Do not grow disheartened if something doesnt go right the first time; just remember to enjoy the process and have fun painting with gouache.

When I paint, I start with one layer and gradually build it layer by layer and color by color to achieve a full-fledged detailed artwork. I have broken down every project in this book into simple steps with images to help you take one step at a time and understand the process of painting with gouache from scratch.

I hope that this book helps you build a strong foundation, identify what works best for you and create your own process. Id love to see your journey and artwork. To share your work with me and the community, please use the hashtag #PaintingFloralswithVidhi.

You can also find my online classes on Skillshare and share your work there for more personal feedback.

Lets get started!

ALL ABOUT GOUACHE

Gouache is an opaque, water-based paint with a creamy, velvety finish that dries matte.

A little bit of paint goes a long way. A lot of people refer to it as something between watercolors and acrylics as it is water-based like watercolors and opaque like acrylics. Being a versatile medium, gouache is used by different artists in different ways depending upon their style and experience with the medium.

Having a high level of pigment and an opaque nature, it can be layered heavily, leading to a thick, creamy matte finish, or watered down to a watercolor consistency and used as a translucent or transparent layer.

Another good thing about gouache is that it dries super quickly, and you do not have to wait too long before moving on to the next layer of paint.

I am sure you still have a ton of questions about gouache, so lets get right into the details about everything to do with this medium. Shall we?

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WATERCOLORS AND GOUACHE?

Unlike watercolors, you can paint with the lightest color over the darkest color because of its opaque nature. Because it is more pigmented, it is easy to layer one color on another without losing the pigment or resulting in the two colors getting mixed up. Gouache has a much higher level of pigment and dries faster and more matte than watercolors.

These flowers show layering, with a light color over a dark base.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ACRYLICS AND GOUACHE?

Acrylics cannot be reused once they dry out. Gouache can be reactivated with water and can be used any number of times.

HOW CAN YOU GET THE RIGHT CONSISTENCY OF GOUACHE?

When I moved from watercolors to gouache, I was mixing a lot of water with my paint out of habit because of using watercolors for so long. The consistency of your paint is important, and ideally you do not need to mix a lot of water unless you are going for a watery effect. For a creamy matte consistency and an opaque texture, add no more than a drop of water to a pea-sized amount of paint.

Add more water to reduce opacity and for a watercolor effect.