Gouache Resist / Ink Resist Painting - Dragonfruit

This is an art tutorial on how to create a gouache resist painting with a botanical motif, the dragonfruit. 1. Draw your art motif with a pencil. Get inspiration by the book "Amazing Rare Things" by David Attenborough. 2. Mix your color palette with gouache. Mix every color with white because white is very resistant. 3. Color the background and the plant with gouache, BUT leave the pencil strokes out! 4. Let the gouache layers dry. This takes about 2 hours. 5. Take Chinese or Indian ink. If the ink is very thick, thin it down with water. Then paint over the whole drawing. 6. Let the ink dry for about 1 hour. Make sure it's really dry. 7. Put the painting under your water tap and rinse it with cold water. Use your brush to help removing the ink. What I love about this technique is that the outcome is so unpredictable. The effect is amazing. It looks like a print, but it isn't. All in all I recommend you to try this first with a smaller test motif. Otherwise the ink might be too thick and you could ruin your whole painting.