Watercolour – Technique and History

Did you know that the largest watercolour painting ever made – measuring 8 x 15 feet (approx. 2.43 x 4.57 m) – is on display at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. Barbara Prey – a renowned American watercolourist – spent a full year working on this piece. "I had never done anything like this before, so I had to find a sheet of paper suitable for a large-format watercolour, as well as supports where I could position it at the right angle, since on a vertical surface the paint would simply run straight down."

Barbara Prey and her artwork. Photo: Wikipedia

Aqua – water. Watercolour is paint made with water-soluble binders. From the 16th to the 18th century, watercolour binders included sugar, egg white and glue, but from around the 19th century onward gum arabic became the preferred choice. Various additives – honey, ox gall, glycerine and preservatives – are used to improve the paint's quality, longevity, resistance to environmental effects and colour intensity.

Watercolour Labelling

Stars – indicate the colour's resistance to light. The more stars, the more lightfast the colour.

Small squares or circles (fully coloured in, half-coloured, or only outlined) – indicate the colour's transparency.

Small triangles (fully coloured in, half-coloured, or only outlined) indicate the pigment's strength, or how firmly it "sets" in the paper. The colour formula – PB15PV23PBk7 (given here as an example, the code for indigo) – consists of letters describing the pigment's general colour (CIGN) and numbers identifying the specific pigment (CICN).

If the manufacturer does not provide this information, the paint is not included in the international system that guarantees its quality meets the required standards.

History

Various sources date the origins of watercolour differently, perhaps depending on the author's own understanding of what watercolour is. If it is treated simply as painting with paints bound by water-soluble binders, then watercolour's history is one of the oldest in the world of art. It is believed to have first appeared in Egypt, roughly 4,000 years ago. Scribes ground brown earth, mixed it with water and egg white, and used it to create hieroglyphs and illustrations on papyrus. A little later, the same technology was used in China for painting on silk (paper had not yet been invented). Watercolour technique began to develop in China once paper appeared in the 2nd century CE. In Europe, the forerunner of watercolour technique was painting on wet plaster (fresco), which made it possible to achieve washes, bleeds, gradations and other subtle effects. By the 12th–13th centuries, once paper had become widespread in Europe, artists gradually began to "tame" this wonderful technique. The early artists who painted in watercolour included Van Dyck, Claude Lorrain and Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione. They used watercolour for sketches, drawings and miniatures. However, it was Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528), who painted several superb landscapes, studies of wildlife, animals and plants in watercolour, who raised the technique to a higher artistic level. His follower Hans Bol (1534–1593) founded a watercolour school in Germany.

Albrecht Dürer's iconic drawing "Young Hare", 1502. Watercolour, gouache.

England. Here too, early watercolour played only a supporting role, embellishing engravings and illustrating drawings. Yet thanks to individual artists, watercolour's popularity grew. They took part in various commissioned projects and joined geological or archaeological expeditions, illustrating the landscapes of newly discovered sites, which popularised watercolour as a form of personal travel journal, though it quickly became an independent painting genre in its own right.

The fathers of English watercolour are considered to be Paul Sandby (1730-1809), Thomas Girtin (1775-1851) – known for large-format landscape painting – and Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775 - 1851), who discovered the immense possibilities of the watercolour technique.

Paul Sandby, watercolour "A Distant View of Maidstone, from Lower Bell Inn, Boxley Hill", 1892, photo: Wikimedia Commons

Thomas Girtin, watercolour "Kirkstall Abbey", 1801, photo: Wikimedia Commons

J. M. W. Turner, watercolour "Valley of Aosta: Snowstorm, Avalanche and Thunderstorm", 1836, photo: Wikimedia Commons

Societies were founded that organised annual watercolour exhibitions and debated the merits of traditional transparent watercolour versus the newly fashionable non-transparent, opaque, covering, gouache-like style.

J.M.W Turner's watercolours are alive, they breathe, full of movement, beauty and sunlight, which is why they so fascinated, astonished and moved French artists at the end of the 19th century.
The influence of English watercolour also paved a way into the hearts of French artists. It became popular and highly valued. E. Delacroix, F. Marius Granet, H. J. Harpignies; in Poland – S. Maslowski; in Germany – A. Menzel.

In the 19th century watercolour became popular in the USA, among the most famous artists being John James Audubon, as well as the early Hudson River School painters (William H. Bartlett and George Harvey).

James John Audubon, "Green Heron", 1861, photo: Wikimedia Commons

20th-century artists who created watercolour works include Wassily Kandinsky, Emil Nolde, Paul Klee, Egon Schiele, and Raoul Dufy, Charles Burchfield, Edward Hopper, Georgia O'Keeffe, Charles Demuth, John Marin.
The English watercolour tradition strongly influenced Russian artists. In the first half of the 19th century, the true rise of watercolour is associated with the name of K. Bryullov. The artist experimented, using various techniques: painting in a single layer all at once, applying paint on dry paper in several layers, and rendering details with a fine brush.

Karl Bryullov, watercolour "The Pacini Sisters, Giovannina and Amacilia", 1832, photo: Wikimedia Commons

Nevertheless, over time, due to its lack of lightfastness, watercolour's popularity and value declined considerably, although Paul Signac and Paul Cézanne still created wonderful watercolour works. Today's artists also continue to create and experiment with watercolour, and paint manufacturers keep pace with them, striving to meet their needs and requirements:

the paint must be transparent, easy to lift with a wet brush and just as easy to lay down on paper.
the binders must be of the highest quality.
the pigment must be intense and lightfast.
the packaging must state the paint's composition
and, of course, everything must be eco-friendly, protecting both nature and the artist's health.

Paints

Until the 18th century, painters bought pigments and binders and made their own watercolour paints. William Reeves and his brother Thomas Reeves were awarded a silver palette by an arts society for their easily dissolving watercolour cakes (they improved the paint's quality by enriching it with honey and were the first to sell dry watercolour paints), which could be easily lifted with a brush and just as easily laid down on paper. On 11 September 1841, the American John Goffe Rand (1801-1873) patented the first flexible metal tube, designed for oil paints. In 1846 this patent was acquired by the paint manufacturer Winsor and Newton, who refined it slightly and adapted it for semi-liquid watercolour paints. Today watercolour paints are used in liquid form, in tubes (with a toothpaste-like consistency) and in cakes that need to be moistened.
The most popular painting surface is paper, though wood, specially prepared canvas, leather and so on can also be used.

Paper

For watercolour painting, the quality of the paper is very important. It must be lightfast (not yellow over time) and contain a minimal amount of salts or ionised chlorine. It is produced by machine or by hand. The most popular high-quality paper is made from 100% cotton, and comes in three types – cold-pressed, which guarantees a coarser or finer paper texture; hot-pressed, which is smooth with no texture; and rough. High-quality paper is marked with a stamp or watermark indicating the paper mill. The first papermaking in Europe began in Italy, in the town of Fabriano (FABRIANO watercolour paper), and a little later in France (Arches paper, which was used for the Nuremberg Chronicle illustrations by A. Dürer).
The larger the watercolour's format, the heavier the paper weight should preferably be. The most popular is 300g, though depending on the technique used, a heavier paper can also be chosen.

Brushes

Watercolour brushes are made from sable, squirrel, ermine, mongoose, ox and llama hair. Synthetic-fibre brushes can also be used, though unlike natural-hair brushes, they absorb less water.

Brushes made from llama, ox and camel hair are most often used for preparatory work: dampening the paper, covering large areas and washing.

Good-quality brushes made from sable and squirrel hair are used for painting brushstrokes and glazing.

Flat and round synthetic brushes are suitable for painting finer details or achieving various dry-brush watercolour effects.

This article was prepared by our author Eglė Lipinskaitė