The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Amelia B. Watercolor and graphite on off-white wove paper, 13 15/16 x 20 15/16 in. Flower Garden and Bungalow, Bermuda (detail), 1899. Artists seeking a more fluid effect in which colors merge may use highly absorbent Japanese papers, unsized sheets, or papers dampened with water, the latter effect seen in the Winslow Homer detail below. Sizing prevents the medium from penetrating the sheet and allows for more precise brushwork. Paper treated with gelatin sizing (a liquid compound that makes it less absorbent) is generally used for watercolor. For this reason, colored paper is rarely employed for this medium.
The underlying support plays an extremely important role in watercolor the brightness of a white sheet of paper, parchment, or ivory (used in the past for miniatures), contributes to the jewel-like quality of the transparent colors. Starting in the late nineteenth century, manmade organic colors were synthesized in laboratories to produce brilliant hues that range from oranges to violets and mauves. Artificial colors processed from minerals include Prussian blue, vermilion, lead white, and cadmium yellow. These include colors made from natural minerals, resins, or vegetables for example, the "earths" (such as ocher and burnt umber), azurite, terre verte, madder root, and gamboge. The watercolor palette comprises a vast range of pigments. Modern watercolors form washes with only a touch of water, allowing greater ease of use. Packaged in cakes of color known as "pans," or in tubes of thickened paint, it is composed of finely-ground pigment combined with water and gum arabic, a binder that disperses the pigment particles to create a uniform solution and adheres it to the support. Prized for the luminosity of its transparent colors, watercolor is a water-based medium that is applied by brush, typically to white paper.
Clockwise from upper left: brushes, watercolor cakes, porcelain palette, components of watercolor (powdered pigment, gum arabic and water), tubes of watercolor, sponge, knife
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