Watercolour Paint
The broader term for water-based painting media is "watermedia". The term "watercolour" still seems most often to refer to traditional transparent watercolour or to gouache, an opaque form of the same paint. These are specific types of watermedia.
Watercolour paint is made of pigment mixed with gum arabic for body and glycerin or honey for viscosity. Gouache has an added content of unpigmented filler to lend opacity to the paint and oil of clove to prevent mold.
Traditionally, watercolour is applied with brushes, but it may be mixed with other materials (usually acrylic or collage) and applied with other implements in experimental approaches. According to a tradition dating from at least the early 20th Century, the white of the paper is the only white used in transparent watercolour. The paint is thinned when applied to allow for lighter passages within the painting. Opaque paint is seldom used for whites or to "overpaint". This lack of opacity provides watercolour its peculiar characteristics of brightness, "sparkle", freshness, and clarity of colour, since the light from a watercolour has passed through the film of paint and is reflected back to us through the film.
Watercolour techniques have the reputation of being quite demanding, although in reality they are not more demanding than those used with other mediums. Maintaining a high quality of value differences and color clarity are typically the most difficult qualities to achieve and maintain.
The medium is equally effective in portraiture, figurative art, photorealism, and abstract work, both objective and non-objective. (Kandinsky produced the first non-objective abstract paintings in transparent watercolour around 1913). Watercolour is prized by its proponents as a studio medium for its lack of smell and ease of cleanup and also as a plain air medium for its portability and quick drying.
