Watercolour

Watercolour is a painting technique, and the works made with it, using water-soluble paints with transparent properties. Pigment is mixed with a binder, usually gum arabic, and thinned with water; light passes through the translucent layers of paint and reflects off the white paper, giving watercolour its characteristic lightness, freshness and luminosity. The classic technique uses no white paint, since the highlights are left as unpainted paper. Watercolour has a long history, appearing in Egyptian manuscripts, medieval miniatures and illuminated books. It reached its height as an independent art in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain, where J. M. W. Turner raised it to the level of major landscape painting. Watercolour remained important for scientific illustration, botanical studies and plein-air sketches thanks to the portability of its materials. In Ukrainian art landscapists and graphic artists worked extensively in watercolour, notably Taras Shevchenko, whose watercolour views and portraits are a valued part of the national heritage. The technique demands confidence and speed, since correcting the transparent layers is extremely difficult.