Cover Image: Anywhere, Anytime Art: Gouache

Anywhere, Anytime Art: Gouache

Pub Date:   |   Archive Date:

Member Reviews

Great starter for anyone wanting to learn all about the properties and uses of Gouache. Would also be a good refresher for those already using the medium

Was this review helpful?

Thank you Netgalley for an ARC of this book in return for my honest review.

I had not heard of gouache prior to seeing this book on Netgalley and I was interested to learn a little about this process. This book gave a good introduction and would be useful for anyone hoping to create their own gouache .

Was this review helpful?

A helpful guide suitable for a beginner to the gouache medium, or for someone wanting to practice and expand their skills.

Was this review helpful?

A charming little book for the beginner to gouache, or indeed the beginner to painting at all. For those new to the subject, gouache is somewhat easier than watercolour, and can serve as an introduction to painting or indeed can be the artists' choice of medium. There is a brief explanation of materials and techniques, then 12 projects to be copied step-by-step. The designs, while perhaps not to everyone's taste, are modern and stylised, and quite achievable for the beginner as they do not involve much in the way of shading, proportion, etc. Designs mostly are of birds, flowers, still life etc, and are colourful and charming. A lovely book for the aspiring artist, would suit children well too. The cover illustration is a good representation of the style within.
Thanks to the publisher for a review copy.

Was this review helpful?

I read through this book and thought... "I can do this!" It shows how to become familiar with colors that can be made from the Gouache paints and how to make simple but quite lovely images. The book is much easier to follow than other painting books that I have come across. I will recommend it to our book acquisition librarian.

Was this review helpful?

This book is great for gouache beginners! Plus the artist has a lovely style and she's really good at explaining the art of gouache and at encouraging people to try painting even if they do not know perspective yet or are scared of certain things in art.

While I absolutely loved the artist's style, I found that because the artist is so individualistic and a master of her art, it doesn't translate to the reader well. As in, you will end up painting way too similarly to this artist and you do not get a lot of tips with gouache or painting in general, but most of the tips are "how to paint like me". More diverse illustration would've helped this book a lot!

Was this review helpful?

Gouache is one of the most unheard of, intimidating mediums out there, but "Anywhere, Anytime Art: Gouache", breaks down the process into simple steps, making it accessible to all skill levels. The style is graphic and quirky, and utterly delightful. A must-have for anyone looking to learn how to paint with gouache!

Was this review helpful?

“Anywhere, Anytime Art: Gouache” by the esteemed Agathe Singer is a wonder for someone who has never tried this artistic technique before.
The illustrations are simply beautiful and there are easy-to-follow instructions for successfully painting with gouache. Highly recommended for new and accomplished practitioners of the art.

Thanks to the author, Quarto Publishing Group - Walter Foster, and NetGalley for the review copy. Opinions are fully mine.

#Anywhere,anytimeArt:gouache #NetGalley

Was this review helpful?

I know a little about gouache, although have never used it before, I am willing to have a go after reading this book. The book starts with an excellent explanation of the paint medium and is followed by samples. The projects are really quite appealing in this book, and are made to help you understand how the gouache works on designs. The projects are easy to follow and the drawings can be reproduced with a little skill in your own interpretation. This is followed by a section on pattern and design and painting in a series.
I am certainly going to enjoy doing these projects

Was this review helpful?

Really informative and easy to follow book. Written in plain English so would be accessible to all ages.

Was this review helpful?

I like this book. I'm a complete beginner when it comes to painting. I didn't even know what gouache was when I started reading this, and I don't think my drawing/painting skills have much improved since kindergarten. This book makes it seem do-able to paint something I might not want to throw into the garbage immediately.

There's some quite brief info on tools (paints, palettes, brushes, paper) and then the book dives into painting techniques with a short detour through color theory before presenting 12 project-based lessons.

Some of the instructions are a bit too brief, though. One the page about layering and texture (p.14 in the proofs), for example, there are 16 boxes, each with two colors. I imagine they have something to do with the layering the author is talking about, but she doesn't explain so you have to guess. Are these examples showing what it looks like to apply a darker color on top of a lighter color? Vice versa? No way to be sure. Across all the lessons, I would have liked to see more info on how to choose an appropriate brush for a given task.

I also didn't care for was the chapter on how to outfit yourself for painting outdoors (or at least outside your usual painting place). It seemed out of place in a book about techniques for how to learn to paint - can't most people figure out how to put paint and brushes in a backpack by themselves?

Overall, I like this book but I think in future editions, it could be fleshed out a bit more in the instructions and techniques. Either that or market it towards beginners with gouache but who aren't necessarily beginning <i>painters.

Was this review helpful?

Lately I have been experimenting with gouche so I was excited for the chance to read and review "Anywhere, Anytime Art: Gouche". Although I grew up surrounded by art books I appreciate when "how to" books cover the basics of color theory, make some introductions about tools and give some basics before providing tutorials and projects. For a beginner this is a great place to start and Agathe Singer's work demonstrates the textural qualities of gouche in ways that demonstrate some of the ways it differs from watercolor without going into great depth. A perfect book for a beginner interested in learning a new skill at their own pace.

Was this review helpful?

4 stars

I requested Anytime, Anywhere Art: Gouache because I am a new user of the medium and thought that this book would be a good supplement to the limited knowledge I had about using gouache paints. I loved it. The simplicity of the exercises gives you a chance to get comfortable with the medium as well as to try out different techniques to build your own style/preferences.

For sure I would recommend anyone who wants to have some beginner level exercises using gouache should pick up a copy of this book. There were 12 lessons in total [and yes a few were pretty similar in their subject matter i.e. birds versus birds on a branch…] and they are all simple enough to follow along with basic supplies.

I myself have some Simply Simmons and Princeton Preferred brushes and basic Reeves gouache paint tubes, but that was more than enough to follow along and get some really interesting results. I was worried when reading the introduction to supplies that I would need materials that I didn’t have [and wasn’t going to get] to participate in the tutorials, but that is most definitely not the case.

My only criticism that brought my rating to four stars was the specific art style that the book was teaching to. Now, this isn’t something that is detrimental to the overall usage of the book, but if you don’t like the art style featured on the cover, then you will not like the art style given in the lessons. It is fit to teach in Agathe Singer’s style [and rightfully so], but because it is unique, it may not be suited for everyone.

Final notes:
12 lessons
Step by step illustrated instructions
Various subject matter that can be adjusted to your preferred taste
A very specific art style that may not be for everyone

Was this review helpful?

THe guide introduces gouache painting. There is an introduction to the materials used and detailes step-by-step instructions on how to paint with gouache. Different projects increase the difficulty level in small steps and guide you from basic colour block paintings to paintings with different layers featuring animals and plants.

Since gouache is different from water colours, I especially appreciated the information on how much water to add to the colours, how to mix and layer the colours.

This guide is suitable for anyone who would like to try out gouache painting.

Was this review helpful?

(Received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Of course.)

There are a lot of things I really like about this book. I've been personally working with gouache as part of my artistic toolbox for several years now, and love it like crazy -- and I really wish I'd had a book like this when I started. I came in via watercolor (just like Singer), and had a...uh...bit of a learning curve, since the two mediums are like cousins who look alike but just don't quite get along. What's fine for one is a screaming hissyfit of a disaster for the other.

If you're looking to make the leap, or just to start with the medium in general, there's a lot here for you to learn. Singer goes over mixing and color, blending, making patterns, and even how to figure out how much water your paint needs (a big part of getting gouache to not look like a three year old finger-painted it with kool aid. Trust me.). It's a very solid primer on how to start painting with it.

Most of this was repeat info for me, but I loved some of her creative suggestions on making your gouache work a practice. She delves into things like setting goals and the 365 project (a piece of art every day for a year), and even on developing your own language of color. Also, her style is wonderful -- even experienced artists would probably glean a bit of inspiration from her work.

The step-by-step projects are done well. There are enough process steps that even a newcomer can get some pretty great results, and get in some practice time at the sketchbook, too. My only complaint with it (and it's not much of a complaint) is that I didn't always understand what the step-outs were trying to teach for that project. I can usually look at these projects and think *okay, this is teaching how to use pattern*, or *aha! this is where we get to see about color mixing*, and do only those exercises with my own problem areas. I felt like these were very cute, very well-done practice examples, but less technique than just medium practice -- which is perfectly okay, especially for beginners.

I will say, too, that after reading through the book, my fingers were positively itching to get out my brushes and my paints and make stuff. That kind of inspiration is almost always worth the cost of obtaining it, and luckily, in book form, this one can be at my fingertips when I need it.

If you've ever wanted to try gouache, or have tried it unsuccessfully before, I'd definitely recommend this book as a great place to (re)start. Warning, though: once you've been bitten by the bug, you may find you're painting a lot more often.

(As if that's even a downside.)

Was this review helpful?

This book is a guide to using gouache aimed at people who have never tried it before. The author provided some very basic tips and techniques for using gouache along with some very simple, stylized painting projects to get you experimenting with the medium. The patterns, flowers, birds, and cats in the 12 projects are very basic and easy to do following her instructions because you aren't attempting realism. The author had an encouraging tone and promotes fanciful painting for fun and relaxation. I've been painting with gouache for several years now, so I didn't learn anything new. However, this book could be useful to someone new to gouache or even to painting.

Was this review helpful?

I'm a mixed media artist and I was looking for some different inspiration when I stumbled upon this book. I really loved it! It's simple, yet very stylish. It's designed with the idea of anyone can draw or paint, which I definitely agree.
The author's style is reflected in the book. It's quite quirky. The descriptions are very detailed and simple. The tools and important side information like color theory is not missed. There are quite a lot of different content covered like patterns, flowers, animals, objects, etc.
So, for beginners it's really good. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for granting a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

Was this review helpful?

A very cute, lovely book, I loved the style of the author / artists. However the painting advice given is sticking with this certain style and if you want to explore how-to's with gouache it might be a bit of a miss.
This is the perfect book for a beginner, has all the advice from start to finish and also for painting different type of objects/ patterns. But if you are advanced, this probably will have less to offer, still you can get some bits into practice but I think overall this targets beginners/newbies to Gouache.

Was this review helpful?

I've long been interested in Gouache but struggled to get it to work for me. I think the easy to follow techniques in this book will really help me up my crafting game.

Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Was this review helpful?