Collection: WATERCOLOUR PAINTS AND MEDIUMS

WHAT IS WATERCOLOUR?

So, what is watercolour? Watercolour paint is made up of finely ground pigment suspended in a binder made of distilled water and gum Arabic (a gum that is extracted from 2 species of the acacia tree). The acacia gum, or gum Arabic, acts as the glue that binds the pigment to the substrate it is applied to once the water has evaporated during the drying process. It slows the movement of the watercolour when applied as a wash, and many artists add more gum Arabic to their watercolour to gain control over their colour, i.e. stop it from bleeding or spreading too quickly over a surface (more on this in the watercolour mediums section). Generally, the character of each watercolour colour tends to rely more heavily on the characteristic of the pigments used, and certainly more so that found in oils of acrylics, where the character of the binder itself plays a more significant role in contributing to the character of the paint overall. This is also true because colour is applied much more thinly, which allows for the characteristic of the pigment to be more apparent in the very thin paint film that is applied.

The 3 main properties of watercolour - transparency/opacity, staining capacity and granulation

Watercolourists tend to consider 3 key characteristics when choosing the pigments that they wish to work with:

• Transparency/opacity
• The Staining capacity
• Granulation/texture