I wanted to put together a little starter kit for anyone out there who also wants to try gouache. For colors: these are my mains. you need a cool and warm version of red, yellow and blue, a black and a white. I also add naples yellow, burnt sienna and yellow ochre. Any brand.

For brushes, you really just need a couple to start, a smallish square one, a big square one and a round one. That blue one on the end is my favorite, it’s the student brand of Winsor & Newton called cotman so don’t think you need to spend a ton of money.

For pallets, I buy cheap little ceramic dishes. This is a soap dish. I also bought a bunch of these little soy sauce dishes, those work great. And they’re way cheaper than stuff branded specifically for artists.

Finally, once you get everything, before you dive in, I cannot recommend enough making color charts for yourself from your colors. I do them on little cards that I laminated because I bring them with me when I plein air. I always look at this when trying to mix a color.

The color chart does 2 things: gives you a color mixing guide you’ll use forever, and also introduces you to the consistency of the paint which varies between the colors. Some are really transparent (like ultramarine) and some are super opaque (Naples yellow!)