watercolor

     

Watercolor (US) or Watercolour (UK) (an "aquarelle" in French) is a painting method. A watercolor is the medium or the resulting artwork, in which the paints are made of pigments suspended in a water soluble vehicle. The traditional and most common support for watercolor paintings is paper; other supports include papyrus, bark papers, plastics, vellum or leather, fabric, wood, and canvas. In East Asia, watercolor painting with inks is referred to as brush painting or scroll painting. In Chinese and Japanese painting it has been the dominant medium, often in monochrome black or browns. India, Ethiopia and other countries also have long traditions. Fingerpainting with watercolor paints originated in China.

Trivia about watercolor

  • Fine hairs from squirrels' tails are used in brushes for this painting medium whose name tells you it uses H2O
  • Many amateur artists use the medium seen here named for its non-oil based pigments
  • This style of painting is characterized by broad transparent areas of paint called washes
  • Aquarelle is a transparent, rather than opaque, type of this painting, as seen in Paul Klee's work "Quarry"
  • There are 2 major techniques of this type of painting: transparent & gouache, which is opaque
  • Adolf Menzel painted in oils with his right hand but used his left for work in this H2O-soluble medium
  • Rembrandt & Winslow Homer were both known for this type of painting involving dissolved pigments
  • Gouache is a type of this painting technique; its name comes from guazzo, Italian for "puddle"

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