American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the United States and in most circumstances i ...
) or watercolour (
British English
British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Lexico, Oxford Dictionaries, "English language, English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in ...
; see
spelling differences
Despite the various English dialects spoken from country to country and within different regions of the same country, there are only slight regional variations in English orthography, the two most notable variations being British and American ...
), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a
painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...
method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to the Stone Age when early ancestors combined earth and charcoal with water to create the first wet-on-dry picture on a cave wall." London, Vladimir. The Book on Watercolor (p. 19). in which the paints are made of
pigment
A pigment is a colored material that is completely or nearly insoluble in water. In contrast, dyes are typically soluble, at least at some stage in their use. Generally dyes are often organic compounds whereas pigments are often inorganic compou ...
s suspended in a water-based solution. ''Watercolor'' refers to both the
medium
Medium may refer to:
Science and technology
Aviation
*Medium bomber, a class of war plane
*Tecma Medium, a French hang glider design
Communication
* Media (communication), tools used to store and deliver information or data
* Medium of ...
and the resulting artwork. Aquarelles painted with water-soluble colored ink instead of modern water colors are called ''aquarellum atramento'' (
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
for "aquarelle made with ink") by experts. However, this term has now tended to pass out of use.
The conventional and most common ''support''—material to which the paint is applied—for watercolor paintings is
watercolor paper
Watercolor paper or watercolour paper is paper or substrate onto which an artist applies watercolor paints, pigments or dyes. "The term “colour” is inappropriately given by common usage to material substances which convey a sense of colour t ...
. Other supports or substrates include stone, ivory, silk, reed,
papyrus
Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, '' Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'') can also refer to a ...
, bark papers, plastics,
vellum
Vellum is prepared animal skin or membrane, typically used as writing material. Parchment is another term for this material, from which vellum is sometimes distinguished, when it is made from calfskin, as opposed to that made from other anima ...
,
leather
Leather is a strong, flexible and durable material obtained from the tanning, or chemical treatment, of animal skins and hides to prevent decay. The most common leathers come from cattle, sheep, goats, equine animals, buffalo, pigs and hog ...
,
fabric
Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not th ...
, wood, and watercolor canvas (coated with a gesso that is specially formulated for use with watercolors). Watercolor paper is often made entirely or partially with cotton. This gives the surface the appropriate texture and minimizes distortion when wet. Watercolor papers are usually cold-pressed papers that provide better texture and appearance with a weight at least 300 gsm. Under 300 gsm is commonly not recommended for anything but sketching. Transparency is the main characteristic of watercolors. Watercolors can also be made opaque by adding Chinese white. This is not a method to be used in true watercolor.
Watercolor paint is an ancient form of painting, if not the most ancient form of art itself. In East Asia, watercolor painting with inks is referred to as
brush painting
Ink wash painting ( zh, t=水墨畫, s=水墨画, p=shuǐmòhuà; ja, 水墨画, translit=suiboku-ga or ja, 墨絵, translit=sumi-e; ko, 수묵화, translit=sumukhwa) is a type of Chinese ink brush painting which uses black ink, such as tha ...
or scroll painting. In
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
,
Korean
Korean may refer to:
People and culture
* Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula
* Korean cuisine
* Korean culture
* Korean language
**Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl
**Korean dialects and the Jeju language
** ...
and
Japanese painting
is one of the oldest and most highly refined of the Japanese visual arts, encompassing a wide variety of genres and styles. As with the history of Japanese arts in general, the long history of Japanese painting exhibits synthesis and competitio ...
it has been the dominant medium, often in monochrome black or browns, often using
inkstick
Inksticks () or ink cakes are a type of solid Chinese ink used traditionally in several Chinese and East Asian art forms such as calligraphy and brush painting. Inksticks are made mainly of soot and animal glue, sometimes with incense or medici ...
or other pigments. India, Ethiopia and other countries have long watercolor painting traditions as well.
Many Western artists, especially in the early 19th century, used watercolor primarily as a sketching tool in preparation for the "finished" work in oil or engraving. Until the end of the eighteenth century, traditional watercolors were known as ‘tinted drawings’.
History
Watercolor painting is extremely old, dating perhaps to the cave paintings of paleolithic Europe, and has been used for manuscript illustration since at least Egyptian times, with particular prominence in the
European Middle Ages
The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD 500), the Middle Ages (AD 500 to AD 1500), and the modern era (since AD 1500).
The first early ...
. However, its ''continuous'' history as an art medium begins with
the Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass idea ...
. The German
Northern Renaissance
The Northern Renaissance was the Renaissance that occurred in Europe north of the Alps. From the last years of the 15th century, its Renaissance spread around Europe. Called the Northern Renaissance because it occurred north of the Italian Renais ...
artist Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528), who painted several fine botanical, wildlife, and landscape watercolors, is generally considered among the earliest examples of watercolor. An important school of watercolor painting in Germany was led by
Hans Bol
Hans Bol or Jan Bol (16 December 1534 – 20 November 1593), was a Flemish-Belgian painter, print artist, miniaturist painter and draftsman.Dürer Renaissance.
Despite this early start, watercolors were generally used by Baroque easel painters only for sketches, copies or
cartoons
A cartoon is a type of visual art that is typically drawn, frequently animated, in an unrealistic or semi-realistic style. The specific meaning has evolved over time, but the modern usage usually refers to either: an image or series of images ...
(full-scale design drawings) Notable early practitioners of watercolor painting were
Van Dyck
Sir Anthony van Dyck (, many variant spellings; 22 March 1599 – 9 December 1641) was a Brabantian Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England after success in the Southern Netherlands and Italy.
The seventh ...
Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione
Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (baptized 23 March 16095 May 1664) was an Italian Baroque painter, printmaker and draftsman, of the Genoese school. He is best known now for his etchings, and as the inventor of the printmaking technique of monoty ...
, and many
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
and
Flemish
Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium; ...
artists. However,
botanical illustration
Botanical illustration is the art of depicting the form, color, and details of plant species, frequently in watercolor paintings. They must be scientifically accurate but often also have an artistic component and may be printed with a botanical ...
and wildlife illustration perhaps form the oldest and most important traditions in watercolor painting. Botanical illustrations became popular during the Renaissance, both as hand-tinted woodblock illustrations in books or broadsheets and as tinted ink drawings on
vellum
Vellum is prepared animal skin or membrane, typically used as writing material. Parchment is another term for this material, from which vellum is sometimes distinguished, when it is made from calfskin, as opposed to that made from other anima ...
or paper. Botanical artists have traditionally been some of the most exacting and accomplished watercolor painters, and even today, watercolors—with their unique ability to summarize, clarify, and idealize in full color—are used to illustrate scientific and museum publications. Wildlife illustration reached its peak in the 19th century with artists such as John James Audubon, and today many naturalist
field guide
A field guide is a book designed to help the reader identify wildlife (flora or fauna) or other objects of natural occurrence (e.g. rocks and minerals). It is generally designed to be brought into the "field" or local area where such objects exi ...
s are still illustrated with watercolor paintings.
English school
Several factors contributed to the spread of watercolor painting during the 18th century, particularly in England. Among the elite and aristocratic classes, watercolor painting was one of the incidental adornments of a good education; mapmakers, military officers, and engineers valued it for its usefulness in depicting properties, terrain, fortifications, field geology, and for illustrating public works or commissioned projects. Watercolor artists were commonly taken on geological or archaeological expeditions, funded by the
Society of Dilettanti
The Society of Dilettanti (founded 1734) is a British society of noblemen and scholars that sponsors the study of ancient Greek and Roman art, and the creation of new work in the style.
History
Though the exact date is unknown, the Society is b ...
(founded in 1733), to document discoveries in the Mediterranean, Asia, and the New World. These expeditions stimulated the demand for topographical painters, who churned out memento paintings of famous sites (and sights) along the Grand Tour to Italy that was undertaken by every fashionable young man of the time.
In the late 18th century, the English cleric William Gilpin wrote a series of hugely popular books describing his
picturesque
Picturesque is an aesthetic ideal introduced into English cultural debate in 1782 by William Gilpin in ''Observations on the River Wye, and Several Parts of South Wales, etc. Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty; made in the Summer of the Year ...
journeys throughout rural England, and illustrated them with self-made sentimentalized monochrome watercolors of river valleys, ancient castles, and abandoned churches. This example popularized watercolors as a form of personal tourist journal. The confluence of these cultural, engineering, scientific, tourist, and amateur interests culminated in the celebration and promotion of watercolor as a distinctly English "national art".
William Blake
William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. ...
published several books of hand-tinted engraved poetry, provided illustrations to Dante's ''Inferno'', and he also experimented with large
monotype
Monotyping is a type of printmaking made by drawing or painting on a smooth, non-absorbent surface. The surface, or matrix, was historically a copper etching plate, but in contemporary work it can vary from zinc or glass to acrylic glass. The ...
works in watercolor. Among the many other significant watercolorists of this period were
Thomas Gainsborough
Thomas Gainsborough (14 May 1727 (baptised) – 2 August 1788) was an English portrait and landscape painter, draughtsman, and printmaker. Along with his rival Sir Joshua Reynolds, he is considered one of the most important British artists of ...
,
John Robert Cozens
John Robert Cozens (1752 – 14 December 1797) was a British draftsman and painter of romantic watercolour landscapes.
Cozens executed watercolors in curious atmospheric effects and illusions which had an influence on Thomas Girtin and J.M. ...
John Warwick Smith
John "Warwick" Smith (26 July 1749 – 22 March 1831) was a British watercolour landscape painter and illustrator.
Life and work
Smith was born at Irthington, near Carlisle, Cumberland, the son of a gardener to the Gilpin family, ...
.
From the late 18th century through the 19th century, the market for printed books and domestic art contributed substantially to the growth of the medium. Watercolors were used as the basic document from which collectible landscape or tourist engravings were developed, and hand-painted watercolor originals or copies of famous paintings contributed to many upper class art portfolios. Satirical broadsides by
Thomas Rowlandson
Thomas Rowlandson (; 13 July 175721 April 1827) was an English artist and caricaturist of the Georgian Era, noted for his political satire and social observation. A prolific artist and printmaker, Rowlandson produced both individual social an ...
, many published by Rudolph Ackermann, were also extremely popular.
The three English artists credited with establishing watercolor as an independent, mature painting medium are
Paul Sandby
Paul Sandby (1731 – 7 November 1809) was an English map-maker turned landscape painter in watercolours, who, along with his older brother Thomas, became one of the founding members of the Royal Academy in 1768.
Life and work
Sandby was ...
(1730–1809), often called the "father of the English watercolor";
Thomas Girtin
Thomas Girtin (18 February 17759 November 1802) was an English watercolourist and etcher. A friend and rival of J. M. W. Turner, Girtin played a key role in establishing watercolour as a reputable art form.
Life
Thomas Girtin was born in Sou ...
(1775–1802), who pioneered its use for large format, romantic or picturesque landscape painting; and
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 177519 December 1851), known in his time as William Turner, was an English Romantic painter, printmaker and watercolourist. He is known for his expressive colouring, imaginative landscapes and turbule ...
(1775–1851), who brought watercolor painting to the highest pitch of power and refinement, and created hundreds of superb historical, topographical, architectural, and mythological watercolor paintings. His method of developing the watercolor painting in stages, starting with large, vague color areas established on wet paper, then refining the image through a sequence of washes and glazes, permitted him to produce large numbers of paintings with "workshop efficiency" and made him a multimillionaire, partly by sales from his personal art gallery, the first of its kind. Among the important and highly talented contemporaries of Turner and Girtin were John Varley,
John Sell Cotman
John Sell Cotman (16 May 1782 – 24 July 1842) was an English marine and landscape painter, etcher, illustrator, author and a leading member of the Norwich School of painters.
Born in Norwich, the son of a silk merchant and lace dealer, Co ...
Samuel Palmer
Samuel Palmer Hon.RE (Hon. Fellow of the Society of Painter-Etchers) (27 January 180524 May 1881) was a British landscape painter, etcher and printmaker. He was also a prolific writer. Palmer was a key figure in Romanticism in Britain and pr ...
Samuel Prout
Samuel Prout painted by John Jackson in 1831
Market Day by Samuel Prout
A View in Nuremberg by Samuel Prout
Utrecht Town Hall by Samuel Prout in 1841
Samuel Prout (; 17 September 1783 – 10 February 1852) was a British watercolourist, and ...
. The Swiss painter Abraham-Louis-Rodolphe Ducros was also widely known for his large format, romantic paintings in watercolor.
The confluence of amateur activity, publishing markets, middle class
art collecting
A private collection is a privately owned collection of works (usually artworks) or valuable items. In a museum or art gallery context, the term signifies that a certain work is not owned by that institution, but is on loan from an individual ...
, and 19th-century technique led to the formation of English watercolor painting societies: the ''Society of Painters in Water Colours'' (1804, now known as the
Royal Watercolour Society
The Royal Watercolour Society is a British institution of painters working in watercolours. The Society is a centre of excellence for water-based media on paper, which allows for a diverse and interesting range of approaches to the medium of wa ...
) and the ''New Water Colour Society'' (1832, now known as the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours). (A ''Scottish Society of Painters in Water Colour'' was founded in 1878, now known as the
Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour
The Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolours (RSW) is a Scottish organisation of painters.
The first preliminary meeting of the society took place in Glasgow on 21 December 1877 as a reaction to a lack of interest in watercolour art by ...
.) These societies provided annual exhibitions and buyer referrals for many artists. They also engaged in petty status rivalries and aesthetic debates, particularly between advocates of traditional ("transparent") watercolor and the early adopters of the denser color possible with body color or gouache ("opaque" watercolor). The late Georgian and Victorian periods produced the zenith of the British watercolor, among the most impressive 19th-century works on paper, due to artists Turner, Varley, Cotman, David Cox,
Peter de Wint
Peter De Wint (21 January 1784 – 30 January 1849) was an English landscape painter. A number of his pictures are in the National Gallery, the Victoria and Albert Museum and The Collection, Lincoln. He died in London.
Biography
De Wint wa ...
John Frederick Lewis
John Frederick Lewis (1804–1876) was an English Orientalist painter. He specialized in Oriental and Mediterranean scenes in detailed watercolour or oils, very often repeating the same composition in a version in each medium. He lived for ...
,
Myles Birket Foster
Myles Birket Foster (4 February 1825 – 27 March 1899) was a British illustrator, watercolourist and engraver in the Victorian period. His name is also to be found as Myles Birkett Foster.
Life and work
Foster was born in North Shiel ...
Arthur Melville
Arthur Melville (1855–1904) was a Scottish painter of Orientalist subjects, among others.
Early life and art education
Arthur Melville was born in Loanhead-of-Guthrie, Forfarshire (now Angus, Scotland) on 10 April 1855. The family mov ...
and many others. In particular, the graceful, lapidary, and atmospheric watercolors ("genre paintings") by
Richard Parkes Bonington
Richard Parkes Bonington (25 October 1802 – 23 September 1828) was an English Romantic landscape painter, who moved to France at the age of 14 and can also be considered as a French artist, and an intermediary bringing aspects of English sty ...
created an international fad for watercolor painting, especially in England and France in the 1820s. In the latter half of the 19th century, portrait painter Frederick Havill became a key player in the establishment of watercolour in England. Art critic Huntly Carter described Havill as a "founder of the water colour school."
The popularity of watercolors stimulated many innovations, including heavier and more sized
wove paper
Wove paper is a type of paper first created centuries ago in the Orient, and subsequently introduced to England, Europe and the American colonies in the mid-eighteenth century. Hand-made wove paper was first produced by using a wooden mould that ...
s, and brushes (called "pencils") manufactured expressly for watercolor. Watercolor tutorials were first published in this period by Varley, Cox, and others, establishing the step-by-step painting instructions that still characterize the genre today; ''The Elements of Drawing'', a watercolor tutorial by English art critic
John Ruskin
John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and pol ...
, has been out of print only once since it was first published in 1857. Commercial brands of watercolor were marketed and paints were packaged in metal tubes or as dry cakes that could be "rubbed out" (dissolved) in studio porcelain or used in portable metal paint boxes in the field. Breakthroughs in chemistry made many new pigments available, including synthetic
ultramarine blue
Ultramarine is a deep blue color pigment which was originally made by grinding lapis lazuli into a powder. The name comes from the Latin ''ultramarinus'', literally 'beyond the sea', because the pigment was imported into Europe from mines in Afg ...
viridian
Viridian is a blue-green pigment, a hydrated chromium(III) oxide, of medium saturation and relatively dark in value. It is composed of a majority of green, followed by blue. Specifically, it is a shade of spring green, which places the color b ...
aureolin
Aureolin (sometimes called cobalt yellow) is a pigment sparingly used in oil and watercolor painting. Its color index name is PY40 (40th entry on list of yellow pigments). It was first made in 1831 by Nikolaus Wolfgang Fischer in Breslau character ...
(
potassium cobaltinitrite
Potassium hexanitritocobaltate(III) is a salt with the formula K3 o(NO2)6 It is a yellow solid that is poorly soluble in water. The compound finds some use as a yellow pigment under the name Indian Yellow.
The salt features potassium cations and ...
),
zinc white
Zinc oxide is an inorganic compound with the formula . It is a white powder that is insoluble in water. ZnO is used as an additive in numerous materials and products including cosmetics, food supplements, rubbers, plastics, ceramics, glass, cement ...
madder lake
Alizarin (also known as 1,2-dihydroxyanthraquinone, Mordant Red 11, C.I. 58000, and Turkey Red) is an organic compound with formula that has been used throughout history as a prominent red dye, principally for dyeing textile fabrics. Historic ...
s. These pigments, in turn, stimulated a greater use of color with all painting media, but in English watercolors, particularly by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
United States
Watercolor painting also became popular in the United States during the 19th century; outstanding early practitioners included John James Audubon, as well as early
Hudson River School
The Hudson River School was a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by Romanticism. The paintings typically depict the Hudson River Valley and the surrounding area ...
painters such as
William H. Bartlett
William Henry Bartlett (March 26, 1809 – September 13, 1854) was a British artist, best known for his numerous drawings rendered into steel engravings.
Biography
Bartlett was born in Kentish Town, London in 1809. He was apprenticed to John Bri ...
and George Harvey. By mid-century, the influence of John Ruskin led to increasing interest in watercolors, particularly the use of a detailed "Ruskinian" style by such artists as John W. Hill Henry,
William Trost Richards
William Trost Richards (November 14, 1833 – November 8, 1905) was an American landscape artist. He was associated with both the Hudson River School and the American Pre-Raphaelite movement.
Biography
William Trost Richards was born on Novembe ...
American Watercolor Society
The American Watercolor Society, founded in 1866, is a nonprofit membership organization devoted to the advancement of watercolor painting in the United States.
Qualifications
AWS judges the work of a painter before granting admission to the soc ...
) was founded in 1866. Late-19th-century American exponents of the medium included
Thomas Moran
Thomas Moran (February 12, 1837 – August 25, 1926) was an American painter and printmaker of the Hudson River School in New York whose work often featured the Rocky Mountains. Moran and his family, wife Mary Nimmo Moran and daughter Ruth too ...
,
Thomas Eakins
Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins (; July 25, 1844 – June 25, 1916) was an American realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator. He is widely acknowledged to be one of the most important American artists.
For the length ...
,
John LaFarge
John La Farge (March 31, 1835 – November 14, 1910) was an American artist whose career spanned illustration, murals, interior design, painting, and popular books on his Asian travels and other art-related topics.
La Farge is best known for ...
Childe Hassam
Frederick Childe Hassam (; October 17, 1859 – August 27, 1935) was an American Impressionist painter, noted for his urban and coastal scenes. Along with Mary Cassatt and John Henry Twachtman, Hassam was instrumental in promulgating Impressioni ...
, and, preeminently,
Winslow Homer
Winslow Homer (February 24, 1836 – September 29, 1910) was an American landscape painter and illustrator, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th-century America and a preeminent figure in ...
.
Europe
Watercolor was less popular in Continental Europe. In the 18th century,
gouache
Gouache (; ), body color, or opaque watercolor is a water-medium paint consisting of natural pigment, water, a binding agent (usually gum arabic or dextrin), and sometimes additional inert material. Gouache is designed to be opaque. Gouache ...
was an important medium for the Italian artists Marco Ricci and
Francesco Zuccarelli
Giacomo Francesco Zuccarelli (commonly known as Francesco Zuccarelli, ; 15 August 1702 – 30 December 1788) RA, was an Italian artist of the late Baroque or Rococo period. He is considered to be the most important landscape painter to hav ...
, whose landscape paintings were widely collected. Gouache was used by a number of artists in France as well. In the 19th century, the influence of the English school helped popularize "transparent" watercolor in France, and it became an important medium for
Eugène Delacroix
Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix ( , ; 26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school.Noon, Patrick, et al., ''Crossing the Channel: Britis ...
,
François Marius Granet
François Marius Granet (17 December 1775 – 21 November 1849) was a French painter.
Biography
François Marius Granet was born on 17 December 1775 in Aix-en-Provence; his father was a small builder. As a boy his strong desires led his parents ...
Honoré Daumier
Honoré-Victorin Daumier (; February 26, 1808February 10, 1879) was a French painter, sculptor, and printmaker, whose many works offer commentary on the social and political life in France, from the Revolution of 1830 to the fall of the second N ...
. Other European painters who worked frequently in watercolor were
Adolph Menzel
Adolph Friedrich Erdmann von Menzel (8 December 18159 February 1905) was a German Realist artist noted for drawings, etchings, and paintings. Along with Caspar David Friedrich, he is considered one of the two most prominent German painters of t ...
in Germany and Stanisław Masłowski in Poland.
The adoption of brightly colored, petroleum-derived aniline dyes (and pigments compounded from them), which all fade rapidly on exposure to light, and the efforts to properly conserve the twenty thousand J. M. W. Turner paintings inherited by the British Museum in 1857, led to a negative reevaluation of the permanence of pigments in watercolor. This caused a sharp decline in their status and market value. Nevertheless, isolated practitioners continued to prefer and develop the medium into the 20th century.
Paul Signac
Paul Victor Jules Signac ( , ; 11 November 1863 – 15 August 1935) was a French Neo-Impressionist painter who, working with Georges Seurat, helped develop the Pointillist style.
Biography
Paul Signac was born in Paris on 11 November 1863. ...
created landscape and maritime watercolors, and
Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically d ...
developed a watercolor painting style consisting entirely of overlapping small glazes of pure color.
20th and 21st centuries
Among the many 20th-century artists who produced important works in watercolor were
Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (; rus, Василий Васильевич Кандинский, Vasiliy Vasilyevich Kandinskiy, vɐˈsʲilʲɪj vɐˈsʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ kɐnʲˈdʲinskʲɪj; – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter a ...
,
Emil Nolde
Emil Nolde (born Hans Emil Hansen; 7 August 1867 – 13 April 1956) was a German-Danish painter and printmaker. He was one of the first Expressionists, a member of Die Brücke, and was one of the first oil painting and watercolor painters of th ...
,
Paul Klee
Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented ...
Raoul Dufy
Raoul Dufy (; 3 June 1877 – 23 March 1953) was a French Fauvist painter. He developed a colorful, decorative style that became fashionable for designs of ceramics and textile as well as decorative schemes for public buildings. He is noted ...
. In America, the major exponents included
Charles Burchfield
Charles Ephraim Burchfield (April 9, 1893 – January 10, 1967) was an American painter and visionary artist, known for his passionate watercolors of nature scenes and townscapes. The largest collection of Burchfield's paintings, archives and jo ...
,
Edward Hopper
Edward Hopper (July 22, 1882 – May 15, 1967) was an American realist painter and printmaker. While he is widely known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching.
Hopper created subdued drama ...
,
Georgia O'Keeffe
Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986) was an American modernist artist. She was known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes. O'Keeffe has been called the "Mother of Ame ...
,
Charles Demuth
Charles Henry Buckius Demuth (November 8, 1883 – October 23, 1935) was an American painter who specialized in watercolors and turned to oils late in his career, developing a style of painting known as Precisionism.
"Search the history of Ame ...
, and John Marin (80% of his total work is watercolor). In this period, American watercolor painting often emulated European Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, but significant individualism flourished in "regional" styles of watercolor painting from the 1920s to 1940s. In particular, the " Cleveland School" or "Ohio School" of painters centered around the
Cleveland Museum of Art
The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, located in the Wade Park District, in the University Circle neighborhood on the city's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egyptian ...
, and the California Scene painters were often associated with Hollywood animation studios or the
Chouinard Art Institute
The Chouinard Art Institute was a professional art school founded in 1921 by Nelbert Murphy Chouinard (1879–1969) in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. In 1961, Walt and Roy Disney guided the merger of the Chouinard Art I ...
(now
California Institute of the Arts
The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a private art university in Santa Clarita, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for students of both ...
). The California painters exploited their state's varied geography, Mediterranean climate, and " automobility" to reinvigorate the outdoor or "plein air" tradition. The most influential among them were Phil Dike,
Millard Sheets
Millard Owen Sheets (June 24, 1907 – March 31, 1989) was an American artist, teacher, and architectural designer. He was one of the earliest of the California Scene Painting artists and helped define the art movement. Many of his large-scale bu ...
,
Rex Brandt
Rexford Elson Brandt (August 12, 1914 – March 21, 2000) was an American artist and educator. Much of his oeuvre consists of paintings inspired by the life and geography of the West Coast of the United States, particularly California. Brandt wor ...
,
Dong Kingman
Dong Kingman (, 31 March 1911 – 12 May 2000) was a Chinese American artist and one of America's leading watercolor masters. As a painter on the forefront of the California Style School of painting, he was known for his urban and landscape ...
, and
Milford Zornes
James Milford Zornes (January 25, 1908 – February 24, 2008) was an American watercolor artist and teacher known as part of the California Scene Painting movement.
Biography
Milford Zornes was born in rural western Oklahoma, a few miles fro ...
. The California Water Color Society, founded in 1921 and later renamed the National Watercolor Society, sponsored important exhibitions of their work. The largest watercolor in the world at the moment (at tall and wide) is ''Building 6 Portrait: Interior.'' Produced by American artist
Barbara Prey
Barbara Ernst Prey (born 1957, New York City) is an American artist who specializes in the art of watercolor. In 2008 Prey was appointed to the National Council on the Arts, the advisory body of the National Endowment for the Arts.An American Vie ...
on commission for
MASS MoCA
The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) is a museum in a converted Arnold Print Works factory building complex located in North Adams, Massachusetts. It is one of the largest centers for contemporary visual art and performing ar ...
, the work can be seen at MASS MoCA's Robert W. Wilson Building.
Although the rise of abstract expressionism, and the trivializing influence of amateur painters and advertising- or workshop-influenced painting styles, led to a temporary decline in the popularity of watercolor painting after c. 1950, watercolors continue to be utilized by artists like Martha Burchfield,
Joseph Raffael
Joseph Raffael (born February 22, 1933 in Brooklyn, NY - July 12, 2021 Cagnes-sur-Mer) was an American contemporary realist painter. His paintings, primarily watercolors, are almost all presented on a very large scale.
Early life
Raffael was ...
,
Andrew Wyeth
Andrew Newell Wyeth ( ; July 12, 1917 – January 16, 2009) was an American visual artist, primarily a realist painter, working predominantly in a regionalist style. He was one of the best-known U.S. artists of the middle 20th century.
In his ...
,
Philip Pearlstein
Philip Martin Pearlstein (May 24, 1924 – December 17, 2022) was an American painter best known for Modernist Realist nudes. Cited by critics as the preeminent figure painter of the 1960s to 2000s, he led a revival in realist art.
Biography ...
,
Eric Fischl
Eric Fischl (born March 9, 1948) is an American painter, sculptor, printmaker, draughtsman and educator. He is known for his paintings depicting American suburbia from the 1970s and 1980s.
Life
Fischl was born in New York City and grew up on s ...
,
Gerhard Richter
Gerhard Richter (; born 9 February 1932) is a German visual artist. Richter has produced abstract as well as photorealistic paintings, and also photographs and glass pieces. He is widely regarded as one of the most important contemporary Germa ...
Francesco Clemente
Francesco Clemente (born 23 March 1952) is an Italian contemporary artist. He has lived at various times in Italy, India and New York City. Some of his work is influenced by the traditional art and culture of India. He has worked in various art ...
. In Spain,
Ceferí Olivé
Ceferí Olivé i Cabré (born in Reus in 1907, died in the same town in 1995) was a Catalan painter.
Biography
Ceferí Olivé studied with master painter . He specialized in watercolor. He used to sign his paintings with his name in Castilian Span ...
Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
, the major exponents are
Ignacio Barrios
Ignacio Barrios (March 10, 1930 – January 22, 2013) was a Mexican painter mostly known for his absolute commitment to watercolour painting. He earned the reputation of one of the top watercolour painters in his country of originGarcía Barrag ...
,
Edgardo Coghlan Edgardo Coghlan (1928 – September 28, 1995), was a Mexican painter who mostly specialized in watercolors depicting Mexican landscapes and people. His work became very popular during his lifetime, collected by museums, other institutions and Mexic ...
,
Ángel Mauro
Angel is a given name meaning "angel", "messenger". In the English-speaking world Angel is used for both boys and girls.
From the medieval Latin masculine name ''Angelus'', which was derived from the name of the heavenly creature (itself derived ...
,
Vicente Mendiola
Vicente is an Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese name. Like its French variant, Vincent, it is derived from the Latin name ''Vincentius'' meaning "conquering" (from Latin ''vincere'', "to conquer").
Vicente may refer to:
Location
*São Vicente, Cap ...
, and Pastor Velázquez. In the Canary Islands, where this pictorial technique has many followers, there are stand-out artists such as Francisco Bonnín Guerín, José Comas Quesada, and Alberto Manrique.
Watercolor paint
Watercolor paint consists of four principal ingredients: a
pigment
A pigment is a colored material that is completely or nearly insoluble in water. In contrast, dyes are typically soluble, at least at some stage in their use. Generally dyes are often organic compounds whereas pigments are often inorganic compou ...
;
gum arabic
Gum arabic, also known as gum sudani, acacia gum, Arabic gum, gum acacia, acacia, Senegal gum, Indian gum, and by other names, is a natural gum originally consisting of the hardened sap of two species of the ''Acacia'' tree, '' Senegalia se ...
as a binder to hold the pigment in suspension; additives like
glycerin
Glycerol (), also called glycerine in British English and glycerin in American English, is a simple triol compound. It is a colorless, odorless, viscous liquid that is sweet-tasting and non-toxic. The glycerol backbone is found in lipids known ...
,
ox gall
Ox gall is gall, usually obtained from cows, that is an ingredient in bile soap and mixed with alcohol and used as the wetting agent in paper marbling, engraving, lithography, and watercolor painting. It is a greenish-brown liquid mixture contai ...
,
honey
Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of plants (primar ...
, and preservatives to alter the
viscosity
The viscosity of a fluid is a measure of its resistance to deformation at a given rate. For liquids, it corresponds to the informal concept of "thickness": for example, syrup has a higher viscosity than water.
Viscosity quantifies the inte ...
, hiding, durability or color of the pigment and vehicle mixture; and, evaporating water, as a solvent used to thin or dilute the paint for application.
The more general term ''
watermedia In art, ''watermedia'' is the general term for media that are distinguished from oil or other media by being diluted with water when used. Watermedia include watercolors, gouache and acrylic, amongst others. It is sometimes combined with other medi ...
'' refers to any painting medium that uses water as a solvent and that can be applied with a brush,
pen
A pen is a common writing instrument that applies ink to a surface, usually paper, for writing or drawing. Early pens such as reed pens, quill pens, dip pens and ruling pens held a small amount of ink on a nib or in a small void or cavity wh ...
, or sprayer. This includes most
ink
Ink is a gel, sol, or solution that contains at least one colorant, such as a dye or pigment, and is used to color a surface to produce an image, text, or design. Ink is used for drawing or writing with a pen, brush, reed pen, or quill. Thicker ...
s,
watercolor
Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to ...
s,
tempera
Tempera (), also known as egg tempera, is a permanent, fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigments mixed with a water-soluble binder medium, usually glutinous material such as egg yolk. Tempera also refers to the paintings done ...
s,
casein
Casein ( , from Latin ''caseus'' "cheese") is a family of related phosphoproteins ( αS1, aS2, β, κ) that are commonly found in mammalian milk, comprising about 80% of the proteins in cow's milk and between 20% and 60% of the proteins in hum ...
s,
gouache
Gouache (; ), body color, or opaque watercolor is a water-medium paint consisting of natural pigment, water, a binding agent (usually gum arabic or dextrin), and sometimes additional inert material. Gouache is designed to be opaque. Gouache ...
s, and modern
acrylic paint
Acrylic paint is a fast-drying paint made of pigment suspended in acrylic polymer emulsion and plasticizers, silicone oils, defoamers, stabilizers, or metal soaps. Most acrylic paints are water-based, but become water-resistant when dry. De ...
s.
The term "watercolor" refers to paints that use water-soluble, complex carbohydrates as a binder. Originally (in the 16th to 18th centuries), watercolor binders were sugars and/or hide glues, but since the 19th century, the preferred binder is natural
gum arabic
Gum arabic, also known as gum sudani, acacia gum, Arabic gum, gum acacia, acacia, Senegal gum, Indian gum, and by other names, is a natural gum originally consisting of the hardened sap of two species of the ''Acacia'' tree, '' Senegalia se ...
, with
glycerin
Glycerol (), also called glycerine in British English and glycerin in American English, is a simple triol compound. It is a colorless, odorless, viscous liquid that is sweet-tasting and non-toxic. The glycerol backbone is found in lipids known ...
and/or
honey
Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of plants (primar ...
as additives to improve plasticity and solubility of the binder, and with other chemicals added to improve product shelf life.
The term "
bodycolor
Gouache (; ), body color, or opaque watercolor is a water-medium paint consisting of Pigment, natural pigment, water, a binding agent (usually gum arabic or dextrin), and sometimes additional Chemically inert, inert material. Gouache is designe ...
" refers to paint that is opaque rather than transparent. It usually refers to opaque watercolor, known as
gouache
Gouache (; ), body color, or opaque watercolor is a water-medium paint consisting of natural pigment, water, a binding agent (usually gum arabic or dextrin), and sometimes additional inert material. Gouache is designed to be opaque. Gouache ...
. Modern acrylic paints use an
acrylic resin
186 px, Polyhydroxyethylmethacrylate is a typical acrylate resin.
An acrylic resin is a thermoplastic or thermosetting plastic substance typically derived from acrylic acid, methacrylic acid and acrylate monomers such as butyl acrylate and or ...
dispersion as a binder.
Commercial watercolors
Watercolor painters before the turn of the 18th century had to make paints themselves using pigments purchased from an
apothecary
''Apothecary'' () is a mostly archaic term for a medical professional who formulates and dispenses '' materia medica'' (medicine) to physicians, surgeons, and patients. The modern chemist (British English) or pharmacist (British and North Amer ...
or specialized "colorman", and mixing them with gum arabic or some other binder. The earliest commercial paints were small, resinous blocks that had to be wetted and laboriously "rubbed out" in water to obtain a usable color intensity. William Reeves started his business as a colorman around 1766. In 1781, he and his brother, Thomas Reeves, were awarded the Silver Palette of the
Society of Arts
The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), also known as the Royal Society of Arts, is a London-based organisation committed to finding practical solutions to social challenges. The RSA acronym is used m ...
, for the invention of the moist watercolor ''paint-cake'', a time-saving convenience, introduced in the "golden age" of English watercolor painting. The "cake" was immediately soluble when touched by a wet brush.
Modern commercial watercolor paints are available in tubes, pans and liquids. The majority of paints sold today are in collapsible small metal tubes in standard sizes and formulated to a consistency similar to toothpaste by being already mixed with a certain water component. For use, this paste has to be further diluted with water. Pan paints (actually small dried cakes or bars of paint in an open plastic container) are usually sold in two sizes, full pans and half pans.
Owing to modern
industrial
Industrial may refer to:
Industry
* Industrial archaeology, the study of the history of the industry
* Industrial engineering, engineering dealing with the optimization of complex industrial processes or systems
* Industrial city, a city dominate ...
organic chemistry
Organic chemistry is a subdiscipline within chemistry involving the scientific study of the structure, properties, and reactions of organic compounds and organic materials, i.e., matter in its various forms that contain carbon atoms.Clayden, ...
, the variety,
saturation
Saturation, saturated, unsaturation or unsaturated may refer to:
Chemistry
* Saturation, a property of organic compounds referring to carbon-carbon bonds
**Saturated and unsaturated compounds
** Degree of unsaturation
**Saturated fat or fatty aci ...
, and permanence of artists' colors available today has been vastly improved. Since 2014,
Golden Artist Colors
Golden Artist Colors, or simply Golden, is an U.S. manufacturing company that focuses on paints used in fine art, decoration, and crafts. Based in New Berlin, New York, the company produces a line of acrylic paints that includes some recreations ...
makes a heavily pigmented line called ''QoR watercolors'' ('Quality of Results') that uses Aquazol as a binder. Correct and non-toxic
primary colors
A set of primary colors or primary colours (see spelling differences) consists of colorants or colored lights that can be mixed in varying amounts to produce a gamut of colors. This is the essential method used to create the perception of a br ...
are now present through the introduction of
hansa yellow
Arylide yellow, also known as Hansa yellow and monoazo yellow, is a family of organic compounds used as pigments. They are primarily used as industrial colorants including plastics, building paints and inks. They are also used in artistic oil pain ...
quinacridone
Quinacridone is an organic compound used as a pigment. Numerous derivatives constitute the quinacridone pigment family, which finds extensive use in industrial colorant applications such as robust outdoor paints, inkjet printer ink, tattoo inks, ...
(PV 122). From such a set of three colors, in principle all others can be mixed, as in a classical technique no white is used. The modern development of pigments was not driven by artistic demand. The
art materials
Arts media is the material and tools used by an artist, composer or designer to create a work of art, for example, "pen and ink" where the pen is the tool and the ink is the material. Here is a list of types of art and the media used within thos ...
industry is too small to exert any market leverage on global dye or pigment manufacture. With rare exceptions such as aureolin, all modern watercolor paints utilize pigments that have a wider industrial use. Paint manufacturers buy, by industrial standards very small, supplies of these pigments,
mill
Mill may refer to:
Science and technology
*
* Mill (grinding)
* Milling (machining)
* Millwork
* Textile mill
* Steel mill, a factory for the manufacture of steel
* List of types of mill
* Mill, the arithmetic unit of the Analytical Engine early ...
them with the vehicle, solvent, and additives, and package them. The milling process with inorganic pigments, in more expensive brands, reduces the particle size to improve the color flow when the paint is applied with water.
Transparency
In the partisan debates of the 19th-century English art world, gouache was emphatically contrasted to traditional watercolors and denigrated for its high hiding power or lack of "transparency"; "transparent" watercolors were exalted. The aversion to opaque paint had its origin in the fact that well into the 19th century
lead white
White lead is the basic lead carbonate 2PbCO3·Pb(OH)2. It is a complex salt, containing both carbonate and hydroxide ions. White lead occurs naturally as a mineral, in which context it is known as hydrocerussite, a hydrate of cerussite. It was ...
was used to increase the covering quality. That pigment tended to soon discolor into black under the influence of sulphurous air pollution, totally ruining the artwork.D. Kraaijpoel & C. Herenius. (2007) ''Het kunstschilderboek — handboek voor materialen en technieken'', Cantecleer, p. 187 The traditional claim that "transparent" watercolors gain "luminosity" because they function like a pane of stained glass laid on paper—the color intensified because the light passes through the pigment, reflects from the paper, and passes a second time through the pigment on its way to the viewer—is false. Watercolor paints typically do not form a cohesive paint layer, as do acrylic or
oil
An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturated ...
paints, but simply scatter pigment particles randomly across the
paper
Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distrib ...
surface; the transparency is caused by the paper being visible between the particles.D. Kraaijpoel & C. Herenius. (2007) ''Het kunstschilderboek — handboek voor materialen en technieken'', Cantecleer, p. 183 Watercolors may appear more vivid than acrylics or oils because the pigments are laid down in a purer form, with few or no fillers (such as kaolin) obscuring the pigment colors. Typically, most or all of the gum binder will be absorbed by the paper, preventing the binder from changing the visibility of the pigment. The gum being absorbed does not decrease but increase the adhesion of the pigment to the paper, as its particles will then penetrate the fibres more easily. In fact, an important function of the gum is to facilitate the "lifting" (removal) of color, should the artist want to create a lighter spot in a painted area. Furthermore, the gum prevents
flocculation
Flocculation, in the field of chemistry, is a process by which colloidal particles come out of suspension to sediment under the form of floc or flake, either spontaneously or due to the addition of a clarifying agent. The action differs from ...
of the pigment particles.
See also
*
Acrylic painting techniques Acrylic painting techniques are different styles of manipulating and working with polymer-based acrylic paints. Acrylics differ from oil paints in that they have shorter drying times (as little as 10 minutes) and are soluble in water. These types ...
*
History of painting
The history of painting reaches back in time to artifacts and artwork created by pre-historic artists, and spans all cultures. It represents a continuous, though periodically disrupted, tradition from Antiquity. Across cultures, continents, and ...
*
Ink wash painting
Ink wash painting ( zh, t=水墨畫, s=水墨画, p=shuǐmòhuà; ja, 水墨画, translit=suiboku-ga or ja, 墨絵, translit=sumi-e; ko, 수묵화, translit=sumukhwa) is a type of Chinese ink brush painting which uses black ink, such as tha ...
*
Oil painting
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of ...
* Andrew Wilton & Anne Lyles. ''The Great Age of British Watercolours (1750–1880)''. Prestel, 1993.
* Anne Lyles & Robin Hamlyn. ''British watercolours from the Oppé Collection''. Tate Gallery Publishing, 1997.
* Christopher Finch. ''American Watercolors''. Abbeville Press, 1991. ASIN B000IBDWGK
* Christopher Finch. ''Nineteenth-Century Watercolors''. Abbeville Press, 1991.
* Christopher Finch. ''Twentieth-Century Watercolors''. Abbeville Press, 1988.
* Eric Shanes. Turner: ''The Great Watercolours''. Royal Academy of Arts, 2001.
* Martin Hardie. ''Water-Colour Painting in Britain'' (3 volumes: I. The Eighteenth Century; II. The Romantic Period; III. The Victorian Period.). Batsford, 1966–1968.
* Michael Clarke. ''The Tempting Prospect: A Social History of English Watercolours''. British Museum Publications, 1981. ASIN B000UCV0XO
* Moore, Sean. ''Ultimate Visual Dictionary''. Dorling Kindersley, 1994.
Tutorials and Technique
* Rex Brandt. ''The Winning Ways of Watercolor: Basic Techniques and Methods of Transparent Watercolor in Twenty Lessons''. Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1973.
* David Dewey. ''The Watercolor Book: Materials and Techniques for Today's Artist''. Watson-Guptill, 1995.
* Donna Seldin Janis. ''Sargent Abroad: Figures and Landscapes''. Abbeville Press; 1st edition (October 1997). .
* Charles LeClair. ''The Art of Watercolor'' (Revised and Expanded Edition). Watson-Guptill, 1999.
* Royal Watercolour Society. ''The Watercolour Expert''. Cassell Illustrated, 2004.
* John Ruskin. ''The Elements of Drawing''
857
__NOTOC__
Year 857 ( DCCCLVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place
Byzantine Empire
* Emperor Michael III, under the influence of his uncle Bardas, banis ...
Watson-Guptill, 1991. (Reprints from other publishers are also available.)
* Pip Seymour. ''Watercolour Painting: A Handbook for Artists''. Lee Press, 1997.
* Stan Smith. ''Watercolor: The Complete Course''. Reader's Digest, 1995.
* Curtis Tappenden. ''Foundation Course: Watercolour''. Cassell Illustrated, 2003.
* Edgar A. Whitney. ''Complete Guide to Watercolor Painting''. Watson-Guptill, 1974. over Edition
Materials
* Ian Sidaway. ''The Watercolor Artist's Paper Directory''. North Light, 2000.
* Jacques Turner. ''Brushes: A Handbook for Artists and Artisans''. Design Press, 1992.
* Sylvie Turner. ''The Book of Fine Paper''. Thames & Hudson, 1998.
* Michael Wilcox. ''The Wilcox Guide To The Best Watercolor Paints''. School of Colour Publications, 2000.