The BEST Hack to Bring Dried Gouache Back to Life!

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]Over time, from painting daily or living in a warmer environment, even in an airtight container, your gouache paints can dry up and look like this.

[00:00:13]Now, I love me a messy palette, but after a plain air painting every day for the last month, my gouache paints are in need of some extra loving and reviving.

[00:00:22]It's currently a little dirty and very dry, and I thought I'd bring you along.

[00:00:27]So, in this video, I'm so excited to share a complete game changer to help bring your gouache palette back to life.

[00:00:33]And with the help of one special ingredient and some love and care, it'll go from this to this.

[00:00:39]First, let's answer the question, why does gouache dry? It dries purely through water evaporation, and the binder inside of it is gum arabic, which gives it a matte finish once it's dry.

[00:00:49]But because the binder itself doesn't actually undergo a chemical change, you can rewet it. And based on your workflow and the way you paint, you can actually add a medium or something to it to reactivate it and even give it a slower drying time. I present to you our secret ingredient for this exact reason. We'll be adding this blending medium with a little bit of water and a little dropper into each well, and it will slow down the drying time, bring our paints back to life, and the best part, make the painting process more enjoyable. First thing, let's hydrate the paints with some water and clean out that paint.

[00:01:24]I didn't add the medium just yet, but all I did was take a little brush and clean out the wells. But if you look closer, there are just some really dry layers under that hydration itself. And it'll require us to get a little bit in there.

[00:01:38]Once the paints are all hydrated, I'm actually going to take the blending medium. Since I've been using this palette everyday, some of the paints have a little bit more paint or a little less paint, so I'll have to be filling it up as well. I'm going to put a little more drops for the drier ones. And if there's less paint, I'll be putting less drops. And I'll be eyeballing all of this really.

[00:02:18]You may have so many questions on the medium itself. And trust me, I did as well. I discovered this method from a fellow gouache painter that had suggested it. And I also did further research on what is inside of the blending medium that allows it to slow down the drying time, which can be super helpful for painters that are painting in warm environment, want to blend a little longer, and just keeping that consistency in your gouache. This medium is formulated primarily with gum arabic, which is the core binder, water, and wedding agents like ox gal. And after we put some love and care into this palette, we will be testing out a painting. So, I'm very excited to share and see how this can be a true game changer. Next up, I'm taking some toothpicks and I'm going to be working the corners of each well. And as you can see, there's just some gouache dried areas. You may notice that the yellows and browns and some of the greens do get a little bit more dry. So, I recommend just taking a look and adding a little bit of the blending medium at a time, just a few drops, and see how that works for you. You can push and pull and play with the consistency and give it a try.

[00:03:28]Immediately, I saw some of the consistency like coming together. So, I just worked it in a circle. And this is the consistency that it was turning into, which was so nice because it felt like a creamy gooey consistency. And doing this alone got me super excited to paint. So now I'm going to continue with the other wells. And the more dry certain areas are, I try and make sure that I take those corners and really scrape off that paint and mix it in all together. I found an up and down motion and then circling the paint works best at first. And it's kind of like a mini baking show. If you bake and you deal a lot with dough and flour, it's very similar on getting that right consistency based on the medium versus paint. So, start with adding a few drops at a time.

[00:04:22]I also kept a little spray bottle nearby to spritz and give a little bit more hydration to the paints, especially the ones that were really, really dry. I live in a really warm place, so it does speed up the drawing time. In full transparency, be weary of splatters and mess because it will happen, but let it be a little messy and fun. And I also quickly learned that some of the more drier wells will break that toothpick.

[00:04:48]So, I ended up switching over to a pallet knife, which was so much better for mixing. But I would also recommend a really tiny one with a point similar to a toothpick to get really into those wells.

[00:05:00]And maybe unpopular opinion, but I recommend finding a meditative soothing process to this. Put on some music and enjoy.

[00:05:15]Vidian is known to dry out a lot quicker than other paints, but I really do love to have it in the palette because I love to mix it with some reds. It creates beautiful shadows, but it was so satisfying to see the medium increase the flow in that vidian because it's usually super cracked and very dry. And here's another example of a leaf green by Holine. It was quite dry, but a beautiful light green to have on the palette as well. So, I hydrated it with a little bit more water and also added a few extra drops of medium inside.

[00:05:57]As we continue, I want to let you know this video is kindly sponsored by Squarespace. This season for me has been all about reviving and bringing love and care back to a lot of things. And one of that has been my website. I've actually redone and am in the process of relaunching and sharing with you guys, which I'm so excited. This is the all-in-one platform and the first one I've ever built my website on. And now it's going through these lovely transformation process. And throughout all the years, Squarespace has a bunch of award-winning templates, super flexible layouts, and a drag and drop editor, so you can just upload your pictures, and everything is beautifully displayed. As it goes in life, we go through changes, transformations, adjustments, cleaning, and growing. And whether it's your paint palette or your website, we do it with intention for the best. And first, you could try it for free for 14 days by going to squarespace.com. And once you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com/jesscarp for 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Now look at her. How beautiful and hydrated and shiny and glossy she looks. You can begin painting right away, but I've got to go to dance.

[00:07:12]So, I'm going to cover them up, let them sit, and tomorrow we try a painting.

[00:07:22]I was super eager to try out these paints and how they feel once I'm in the whole painting process. Whenever making some changes to the palette or even the workflow, it's really nice to take your time and actually test it out and see how it feels based on the way you paint, based on the way you work. So from a friend to friend, if you are trying out some changes, make sure that you do test them out, you do play with them because everybody's workflow is a little different and maybe it's going to be exactly what you're looking for and maybe it'll feel a little bit too fluid.

[00:07:58]So you can control the amount of blending medium you do place inside. For this painting and test, I'm going to be painting a tree. It's been one of my favorite topics so far. It's usually portraits, but lately it's also been trees. Immediately placing my brush and starting to mix the paint, it was so gooey and blendy and fluid, and it was just exactly what I was looking for. It gets really hot and where I live, and as the summer is coming up, it's going to be something I think it will work so well for the summer. I had a little feeling inside, uh, what if I don't like the consistency or it's too liquidy, but it was just right. And I'm so glad I experimented and added it. And I also felt like I personally just was listening to how I like the consistency of the paint and nailed the amount of droplets per well.

[00:08:55]For this painting, I'm starting off with the background and filling it in with these large blocky textury marks to make it appear in the distance and it's more blurry. And the tree itself is going to be in the foreground. So that's going to come next. So I'm working my way back to the front.

[00:09:28]Another change I've been making and I may be doing a little bit of tweaks to my palettes in certain colors that I get to use, which I will be announcing quite shortly. Let me know if you're interested. I'm trying out and starting to use zinc white instead of permanent white for general color mixing, but I'll also have titanium white or permanent white to use for the very light highlights.

[00:09:55]Slowly and surely, you can kind of see the lighting and shapes coming through, but I absolutely was so just the painting experience was so different with this medium. but in the greatest way. Like I was waiting to discover this, you know.

[00:10:19]Of course, I'd like to try it out with more paintings and on location as well, but so far so good. I'm really impressed.

[00:10:27]I loved how it took a little bit more time to dry, so it really kind of mimicked oil paint to me, but not that long. It was still drying relatively quickly compared to oil paint. I have a sense that it'll be like that sweet spot of just slowing down the dry time.

[00:11:09]Heat. Heat.

[00:12:05]I've been exploring different things and trying different brushes and new mediums and just seeing how it's been transforming and changing in my process.

[00:12:15]The ultimate aim is growth and enjoying and doing something in the higher good of any process. and I'm really excited to share it with you guys and keep you in the loop. So, let me know if you have any questions in the comments. I hope this has been super helpful and enjoyable. I've updated and organized all the playlists here on YouTube, so check out the one on the screen to keep on watching. Give this a try and I will catch you in the next one.