Watercolour is an immensely popular medium, particularly in the UK, and the word itself refers to three things:
1) the technique of painting with pigments dispersed in a gum arabic solution (and then diluted with water and applied to paper.
2) Work of art so produced
3) the actual paint used in this fine art technique.
The art of creating watercolours has the charm of having a low barrier of entry. Anyone can take part, but many artists progress to high levels of specialism and expert knowledge. Besides being a great medium for intuitive work, many good water colours have required much planning.
There is also a great range of handmade and machine produced watercolour paper stocks, and brushes of fine sable hair, and colour of various pigments. For novices, the wealth of options can appear overwhelming, but they soon find materials which play to the artists’ strengths.
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