Art Encyclopedia - Watercolour Painting

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Watercolour Painting
Watercolour painting uses paints made of colourants suspended in water. The most common ground for watercolour painting is paper and other grounds include papyrus, bark papers, plastics, leather, fabric, wood and canvas.

In Chinese and Japanese painting, watercolour paint has long been the dominant medium. Other countries with long traditions of watercolour painting include India and Ethiopia.

From the seventeenth century to the present, the British school of watercolour, which especially features landscape paintings, has been one of the most continuous and widely followed art tradition in Europe. Among the most famous of the watercolour artists are: Alexander Cozens, William Gilpin, Thomas Gainsborough, Francis Towne, Paul Sandby, Thomas Girtin, John Sell Cotman, Samuel Palmer, William Blake, John Constable, JMW Turner and Richard Parkes Bonnington.

In the 1920's a new style of watercolour painting called "California Style" emerged with Milford Zornes as a recognized leader of the new watercolour painting movement. The style consisted of the use of watercolours added to detailed pencil drawings and is characterized by the application of transparent washes of color to large sheets of paper, allowing the white to show through and define shapes.