As a visual artist, and as someone fond of mottoes, mine could almost be: ‘If it works with water, I like it!’. That is not strictly true, however: I have so far steered clear of acrylics, on the one hand — and on the other, I do like pastels (but I have been known to use water on occasion with pastels, as well). And this is why I was happy to add gouache, or what the English used to call ‘body colour’, to my repertoire. I’m still exploring it, but I find it works beautifully on nearly all the occasions when I would otherwise use watercolour. And my goodness, the colours!

Check out this beauty. The pure colour is in the round well at bottom — man, it looks like a gemstone! — and on the strip of white Yupo paper (100% polypropylene) lying across. The swatches at bottom left are various purples, with perylene violet at the far right edge, for comparison. The colour above that well is a mix of Van Dyck brown and perylene violet, creating a nice ‘shade’ version of a truly gorgeous hue!