Transparent WC
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(Excerpts from ART HARDWARE: The Definitive Guide to Artists’ Materials, by Steven Saitzyk © 1987) It is the combination of technique with the relative transparency of the paint that gives watercolor its great range, from the subtle to the dramatic. The English watercolor style is a good example of this. Those who paint in this style use transparent washes of color, which allow the background to shine through as if it were another color. The use of textured paper allows flecks of the white surface or previously applied color to show through, giving depth and contrast to subsequently applied colors. William Reeves, the English color manufacturer, is credited with inventing the dry cake form of transparent watercolor around 1780. These colors were made from dry pigments, gum arabic, and sugar (which kept them moist) and were then fitted into small pans which were set into paintboxes. Although they were considered to be an improvement over the colors then in use (which were sold in sea shells), they still tended to be too dry and hard, with a tendency to crumble. A moister cake was created by the French, who substituted honey for the sugar in the original formula. In 1830, the English replaced honey with glycerin, which is still in the formula used today. The first watercolors in tubes were introduced in 1846 by Winsor & Newton, who now makes more than eighty colors in tubes. |
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