gouache

American  

[gwahsh, goo-ahsh, gwash] / gwɑʃ, guˈɑʃ, gwaʃ /

noun

• gouaches
  plural

1. a technique of painting with opaque watercolors prepared with gum.

2. an opaque color used in painting a gouache.

3. a work painted using gouache.

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gouache British  

/ ɡʊˈɑːʃ /

noun

1. Also called: body colour.  a painting technique using opaque watercolour paint in which the pigments are bound with glue and the lighter tones contain white

2. the paint used in this technique

3. a painting done by this method

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• gouaches
  plural

Etymology

Origin of gouache

1880–85; < French < Italian guazzo place where there is water ≪ Latin aquātiō, derivative of aqua water

Explanation

Gouache is a kind of paint that some artists use. When you paint with gouache, you mix it with water. However, unlike watercolors, it's not translucent. Commercial artists often choose to use gouache for illustrations or posters. It has many qualities of watercolor paints (you can add water to thin it, and it dries matte rather than glossy), but the final effect is completely opaque, like acrylics or oil paints. You can also call the painting that results from using these paints a gouache. The word simply means "watercolor" in French, from the Latin root aquatio, "watering place."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

gouache gouaches

“Young Lion” only measures about 4.5 inches tall, but Rembrandt used black chalk and white gouache to render it in minute detail, down to the animal’s eyelashes and the chain around his neck.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 4, 2026

Perhaps the canvas’ most beautiful feature is the rich skin of black acrylic paint within which he and his steed, both rendered in soft veils of thin gouache, are embedded.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 16, 2025

But it’s rare to see work as thoroughly and distinctively strange as these acrylic and gouache paintings on Korean hanji paper by Jongwan Jang.

From New York Times ● May 2, 2024

"I mixed the blue colour by hand especially for the occasion, using a selection of highest-quality gouache paints with beautifully deep pigments," she said.

From BBC ● Apr. 18, 2023

My gouache painting of Buddy Gui’s house—about a mile away from our house—shows his garage door open and all his chain-saw sculptures dragged out onto his driveway.

From "Landscape with Invisible Hand" by M.T. Anderson

One of the Bernard Dellario gouaches on display at Amy Kaslow Gallery is titled “Cutting Through,” which would be an apt alternate title for the local-artist show called simply “Washington Landscapes.”

From Washington Post ● Aug. 26, 2022

Arntzen’s oils are thicker and more textured, while Crawford’s gouaches are softer and more watery.

From Washington Post ● Aug. 12, 2022

Writing in The Times, Roberta Smith said his small ink drawings and gouaches “operate somewhere in the gap between William Wegman’s drolly captioned early drawings and Jean Michel-Basquiat’s acerbic diagrammatic images.”

From New York Times ● Jan. 20, 2021

An entire chapter consists of photographs and gouaches of people’s backs as they walk down sidewalks or corridors, often weighed down by parcels and old age.

From New York Times ● Aug. 21, 2017

The original gouaches have not been located, but from other examples in the same manner, in Buckingham Palace and in the Uffizi, it is plain that Jackson took certain liberties.

From John Baptist Jackson 18th-Century Master of the Color Woodcut by Jacob Kainen