Watercolor

DEFINITION

A painting medium in which the binder is gum Arabic, it for many years before the 20th century was used only for thinning, lightening, or mixing, and was regarded as an inferior medium, suitable primarily for making sketches for future oil paintings. On the East Coast leading proponents of watercolor as a "stand alone" medium included Charles Burchfield, Edward Hopper, Winslow Homer, John Marin and Andrew Wyeth. Burchfield ultimately worked exclusively in watercolor, asserting it was more pliable and quick. A huge boost was given to watercolor&#39;s respectability as a finish medium with the popularity of The California Style, a modernist watercolor approach which flourished from the mid 1920s to the mid 1950s and was led by Californians Millard Sheets, Paul Sample and Emil Kosa Jr. Sources: "Watercolor" magazine, October 2006; Gordon T. McClelland and Jay T. Last, "The California Style". <br><br>A technique of painting using a binder made from a water-soluble gum. Watercolors can be transparent or opaque.<br><br>Painting in pigments suspended in water and a binder such as gum arabic. Traditionally used in a light to dark manner, using the white of the paper to determine values.