Trying a new medium - gouache!

Sure, I'm always purposefully trying to find a new perspective or another way of doing things but this time it was by accident! 

Recently, when it's been really cold in the house, I've avoided going down to the basement (where my studio is) to paint, so when my mum went and ordered a set of gouache paints for herself, I realised that this was my opportunity to paint without freezing my fingers off! Gouache is a medium completely new to me and so far I've not been entirely happy with the results. However, I can see the potential for use in my cuter illustrations; the sketch on the right would make for a rather lovely background/foreground in a story; the one on the left feels like something I could enjoy doing in acrylics on a much larger scale (these are very small, not even ten cm tall). 

I can see myself doing preliminary sketches up in the warm house and then actual canvas paintings sometime in spring/summer when the coolness of the basement is something to look forward to. ;)

Another thing I like about gouache is that I don't have to worry about ruining my brushes! I'm always in dread of accidentally forgetting to clean my good brushes when doing acrylics lol. 

Now all that's left is to figure out how to use these paints; I've tried mixing with pens, crayons and pastels and have still to try watercolour. Ooh, and ink! That could be fun.