Gouache pronounced 'gwash', is an amazingly versatile water-soluble, water-based painting medium. It has a very similar pigment and binder structure to watercolor paint; a finely ground pigment with a Gum Arabic binder. However, Gouache paint contains opacifiers such as chalk/white pigment which gives the paint a matte and more velvety opaque finish once dried.
'Glue Gesso' or "Italian Gesso" commonly known as Traditional gesso contains rabbit skin glue, chalk and white pigment. Some artists still use this gesso ground, mainly professional artists. Thankfully we have many synthetic equivalents at our disposal.
We talk to David Mankin, a contemporary Artist based in Cornwall, whose work is a direct response to his environment. David explores texture, colour, shape, sound, movement and spaces, communicating a sense of the freedom, the vastness, the rhythm and the ebb and flow of nature, which is characteristic to his home in Cornwall.
