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What is watercolor made of? Watercolor for beginners: what colors do you need? The composition of watercolor paints rules for handling them.

Watercolor(derived from the Latin word aqua - water) - adhesive water-soluble paints. Painting made with these paints is also called watercolor.

Features of watercolor

Transparency. It's exclusive important feature these colors. Ways to apply watercolor and excellent results are entirely based on transparency. The reason for everything is the smallest pigment particles, which cannot be seen with the naked eye. This is achieved by the finest grinding of coloring pigments and their even distribution over the surface. The distance between the particles must be sufficient to transmit light to the surface and reflected light. White paper, translucent through a layer of paint gives the painting an incredible luminosity and brilliance. The quality of watercolor depends on the quality of its components and proportions.

Color palette. The derivative properties of watercolor include changing shades by applying dried layers of paint on top of previous ones. With the outward simplicity of what has been said, it is not at all easy to manage color using layers. The master must have a good idea of the result - after all, there will be no opportunity to correct the picture. In watercolor, it is difficult to get by with three primary colors. Therefore, the release of watercolors is always "multi-color" (from 16 colors or more). With mechanical mixing of colors, the properties of watercolors are significantly lost, transparency and purity are reduced. However, it is the transparency of watercolor that allows you to expand color palette these colors to unprecedented sizes.

Hue, saturation. By superimposing layers of the same color on top of each other, color saturation is also achieved. Unlike gouache, watercolor is not intended to be applied pasty, as the whole meaning is lost. The properties of watercolor dictate rules to us, the main of which is the use of a large amount of water, because even the name of watercolor comes from the word "water".

Of the negative features of watercolor, one can single out low light fastness - the painting is destroyed under the influence of light, simply speaking, it fades. In addition, due to the large amount of water, the ink film is rather fragile and can be easily destroyed by external physical influences. Ensuring the long-term preservation of such paintings is not a trivial task.

Watercolor composition

pigments (fine powders),
binder - gum arabic, dextrin, cherry or sloe gum,
plasticizer (glycerin or invert sugar),
surfactant - ox bile - allows you to easily spread the paint on paper, prevents the paint from rolling into drops,
antiseptic - phenol, protects the paint from mold.

Types of watercolor

Artistic watercolor (for paintings)
Design watercolor

Honey cheap paints are widely distributed in stores for schoolchildren. And it is really possible to start acquaintance with watercolor with such paints. After, having felt the watercolor, you can switch to professional formulations. In addition, cheap paints can be used in art and sketches, where the quality of the material does not play such an important role, unlike painting.

Watercolor containers are always small, unlike gouache, since, again, they require more water when used, while gouache can be used without water if the paints are fresh.

They produce watercolor in tubes (semi-liquid watercolor), in plastic tubes (soft watercolor).

For watercolor, special paper is also applicable. Such sheets do not allow the paint to "roll", spreading evenly over the surface, and do not allow "fall through", holding the paint film on the surface. In addition, the density of the paper allows you to keep the shape with a large amount of water. As you know, when wetting and drying sheets of paper are subject to deformation.

Work with watercolors is most often carried out with brushes from the hair of squirrels of large numbers (brushes from number 4), but the refinement of details is done with brushes of lower numbers. A prerequisite for a brush when working with watercolor is the ability to hold a large supply of moisture and have a thin tear-shaped tip. Skilled master artists can produce quality work by one fifth or even seventh number, down to the smallest details.

Store in a dry, well-ventilated room at a temperature not lower than 0 degrees and not higher than 30 degrees, otherwise the quality deteriorates significantly and cannot be restored.

Watercolors are water colors. But watercolor is also called the technique of painting, and individual work done with watercolors. The main quality of watercolor is the transparency and softness of the paint layer.

The French artist E. Delacroix wrote: “What gives the subtlety and brilliance of painting on white paper, without a doubt, is the transparency that lies in the essence of white paper. The light penetrating the paint applied to the white surface - even in the thickest shadows - creates the brilliance and special luminosity of the watercolor. The beauty of this painting is also in the softness, naturalness of the transitions of one color to another, the limitless variety of the finest shades. However, the apparent simplicity and ease with which a professional artist creates paintings in this technique is deceptive. Watercolor painting requires skill with a brush, the ability to unmistakably apply paint to the surface - from a wide bold fill to a clear final stroke. In this case, it is necessary to know how the paints behave on various types paper, what effect they give when superimposed on each other, what colors can be written on raw paper using the Alla Prima technique so that they remain juicy and saturated. IN fine arts watercolor occupies a special place because it can create both picturesque, graphic, and decorative works - depending on the tasks that the artist sets for himself. For an artist engaged in watercolor painting, both the paints themselves and the convenience of using them play an important role. The possibilities of watercolor are wide: the colors are either juicy and ringing, or airy, barely perceptible, or dense and tense. The watercolorist must have a developed sense of color, know the possibilities of different types of paper and the features watercolor paints.

Now, both in Russia and abroad, there are many companies that produce watercolors, but not all of them meet the high requirements that artists working in technology place on them. watercolor painting. It makes no sense to compare the advantages and disadvantages of professional and semi-professional paints, since their differences are obvious and it is difficult to confuse them. Our task is to test modern professional watercolor paints from various world manufacturers and see what capabilities they have and what technique they are suitable for.

For testing, we took several sets of watercolors.

It is almost impossible to determine at a glance which colors are in front of us: black, blue, dark red and brown looked the same - dark spots without any significant color differences, and only yellow, ocher, scarlet and light green had their own color. The rest of the colors had to be determined empirically, trying each color on the palette. And in the future, while working on a watercolor sheet, this significantly slowed down the creative process, although working with these paints leaves a pleasant feeling: they mix easily and give subtle color transitions. It is also convenient that the paints are easily picked up on a brush and gently lay down on paper. When working on wet paper using the Alla Prima technique, after drying, the colors lighten quite a lot, so you can achieve contrast painting only on dry paper, overlapping previously laid strokes with several layers. Then the paints lay down tightly, like gouache.

Venice (Maimery, Italy)

Soft watercolor in tubes. These paints are distinguished by their design, impressive 15 ml tubes for watercolor, aesthetics of expensive artistic paints when everything is thought out and works to ensure that they are chosen when buying. But now we are interested in the most important thing - how easy they are to work with and how pigments retain their properties and color characteristics when interacting with watercolor paper. Already the first strokes showed that the paints are worthy of the attention of artists, professionals involved in watercolor painting: a good color palette, juicy blues, reds, transparent yellows, ochers gently interact with each other, creating additional color nuances of watercolor technique. Unfortunately, brown and black pigments, even with repeated strokes, do not gain the desired tonal saturation. Black paint looks like sepia even with multi-layer prescription. There is a significant inconvenience in their work. Since the watercolor in tubes is soft and squeezed out onto the palette, with saturated painting, the pigment is not always evenly picked up on the brush and also falls unevenly on the surface of the paper. During glazing, when paints are repeatedly applied to previous dried out stains, these shortcomings are not very noticeable, but when working on a damp paper surface using the Alla Prima technique, this greatly interferes, since uneven clots of the paint layer are formed, which, when dried, destroys the integrity of the put stroke. Soft watercolor is more suitable for classical painting, although with some experience with these paints and in the technique in a raw way, the watercolor artist can create magnificent examples.

"Studio" (JSC "GAMMA", Moscow)

Twenty-four colors - the palette is not inferior to the best samples of foreign professional watercolors. Four types of blue - from classic ultramarine to turquoise, good selection, yellow, ocher, sienna, red, together with other colors create a rich color scheme. When working with glazing on a dry surface, the paints give a transparent layer, and with repeated prescriptions, they gain tone and color well without clogging the structure. watercolor paper. The pigments mix well and apply evenly on the sheet. In the Alla Prima technique, paints give a uniform brushstroke, gently flowing into each other, creating many subtle watercolor nuances, complementing the already rich color palette. As an experienced watercolor artist, I was somewhat surprised not to find in this set the emerald green paint that is present in all professional sets of the world's watercolor paint manufacturers, and the green that, perhaps, was supposed to replace the emerald -green, “sounds” more dull. Well mixed paint gives an even covering layer, remaining matte after drying. So watercolor fits the bill professional artists. Otherwise, the paints are superior to many similar world samples.

"White Nights" (Factory of artistic paints, St. Petersburg)

In front of me is a box of White Nights watercolor art paints released in 2005. Kohler is easily typed into the bristle of the brush and just as easily falls on the sheet. The color is distributed over the surface evenly in both thick and transparent strokes, after drying it remains matte without losing its saturation. In the Alla Prima technique, on a wet sheet of paper, paints give a lot of the finest watercolor transitions, smoothly flowing into each other, but at the same time, thicker drawing strokes retain their shape and saturation. colorful layer does not clog the structure of the paper, gives it the opportunity to glow from the inside, and even with repeated copy-books, it retains its “watercolor”. Watercolor meets the requirements of professional artists. The next task is to find out characteristics watercolors using common techniques. During painting, while the watercolor is not yet dry, it can be removed with a hard piece of cardboard, a metal blade or a brush handle, leaving thin light lines and small planes, and after drying, you can

Aquafine (Daler-Rowney, England)

After the Aquafine paints lay down in strokes on the watercolor sheet, we removed the layer of color from the surface of the paper with a metal blade. The result was light, almost white lines - in the raw form, the paints are easily manageable. When the watercolor layer was dry, we tried to wash it off with a sponge. It turned out that it was impossible to wash it white. The color has penetrated the glued surface of the sheet and has been absorbed into the fiber of the paper pulp. This means that such paints must be painted in one session for sure, without subsequent flush corrections.

Venice (Maimery, Italy)

The same test, carried out with Venezia paints, showed that soft paints are not completely removed when scratched with a blade, leaving jammed edges and color underpainting, and when the paint layer is completely dry using a sponge, the color is washed off selectively, depending on the density and thickness of the applied strokes. .
Watercolor paints from Russian manufacturers Studio GAMMA OJSC (Moscow) and White Nights paints produced by the art paint factory of St. Petersburg can be combined into one group, since there are no significant differences between them when using techniques in this text.

The semi-moist surface is almost completely removed with a blade, a piece of hard cardboard, a brush handle, from a thin line to a wider surface, and after drying, you can almost completely wash off the watercolor layer, which, of course, will not be completely white, but close to it. Carmine, kraplak and violet-pink are also not washed off white.

Another test that both professionals and beginners can conduct on their own belongs to the category of extreme .. Make color samples of paints on watercolor paper. Cut off half of each for paint and leave it in a folder in the workshop, place the other half for a rather long period (a month and a half) under the direct rays of the sun. Let them be exposed to temperature changes, fogs and rains. This test will show many qualities of paints, in particular, compliance with the marking for color fastness. Knowing the properties of watercolors, no one, of course, will exhibit his sketches without the protection of glass or plastic, much less place them in such ruthless conditions.

However, this test will allow you to visually, from your own experience, make sure that watercolor is a thin, plastic, soft material that requires careful attitude and related storage rules. If they are observed, your works will indefinitely delight you and those around you with the freshness and “watercolor” inherent only in this material.

Paints for the tests were provided by the editors of the magazine "Artistic Council" (AKT SOUMS11). In preparation technical side- conducting tests, shooting illustrations was attended by a student of Moscow State Technical University. A.N. Kosygin Denis Denisov, was advised by the Honored Artist of Russia, a watercolorist with more than fifty years of experience in this material Vasily Filippovich Denisov.

Alexander Denisov, Associate Professor, Department of Drawing and Painting, Moscow State Technical University. A.N. Kosygin

Full squad It is not customary to specify watercolors from manufacturers. Most often on the packaging we will find only an indication of the pigments on the basis of which the paint is made. But let's see what else can be hidden inside the tube and what role the various ingredients play.
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All that we will consider in this article is only general information, on the basis of which you can get an idea about the recipe of paints.
In reality, the formulation of each paint of each manufacturer is unique and is a trade secret.
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So let's get started!
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Coloring agent

The basis of any coloring composition is a coloring agent. It is he who determines the color of the future paint, its coloring ability, light fastness and many other properties. Coloring agents can be divided into pigments and dyes.
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A dye is a substance that is capable of coloring other materials, usually soluble in water.
Pigment is a colored substance that is insoluble in water. Simply put, it is a colored powder (ground very finely), the particles of which are in no way connected with each other.
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If we are talking about professional watercolors, then in most cases we are dealing with pigments.
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Not only are the pigment particles themselves in no way connected to each other, they also do not form any connection with the surface on which they are applied. If we tried to paint with a mixture of pigment and water, after drying, this mixture would begin to crumble from the sheet.

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In order to ensure that the pigment particles adhere to the surface and that the ink interacts with the paper in the way we are used to, a so-called binder is used.
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Also, it is the binder that determines the type of future paint. Of course, we are talking about watercolor, where a water-soluble binder is used. But, if instead of it we take, for example, linseed oil, then we could get oil paints. After all, the pigments, for the most part, are the same in paints.
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The main advantage of a watercolor binder is that it can be re-dissolved in water even after it has completely dried. That is why watercolor paints that have dried on the palette are enough to moisten with water for reuse, which is why we can wipe and select paint from the sheet even after the paint layer has dried.

What can serve as a binder for watercolor?

Historically, people have used a whole variety of different substances - these could be resins, starches, animal adhesives, and so on.
That is, there was no single option. By the way, according to one theory, this is why watercolor got its name not in honor of the binder (like oil or acrylic), but in honor of its solvent - water.
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In the 18th century, gum arabic began to be used in Europe, and it remains the most popular watercolor binder to this day. Gum arabic is a hard, transparent resin of a yellowish hue, consisting of the dried juice of some types of acacia.
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The price of gum arabic is quite high, so cheaper binders are used in budget series and general purpose paints. For example, dextrin is actively used - a substance obtained from various starches. Also, as a replacement, there are worthy options not only for vegetable, but also for synthetic binders.

Additives and fillers

The first commercial watercolors consisted mainly of pigment, water and gum arabic and were solid tiles. Before use, such tiles had to be grated and long time soak in water.
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In order for our paint to have the usual pasty consistency, and when dried, it is soaked from the touch with a wet brush, various plasticizers and moisturizers are added to it.
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One of the most popular plasticizers in watercolor is glycerin, and sugar syrup or honey can be used as a moisturizer.
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And those are just the basics! In addition, watercolors may also contain various dispersants, preservatives, thickeners, and so on. It is important to understand that all this is in the composition for a reason.
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Each pigment has its own characteristics, and in order to make paints from them that are approximately similar in consistency and behavior, it is required individual approach and unique recipes.

It should also be added that special fillers can be used to lower the pigment concentration and reduce the final cost of the paint. Such fillers are often used in paints based on the most expensive pigments. It is also normal practice to use them in student series, this makes paints more accessible. The addition of such fillers usually does not affect the preservation properties of the paint. However, their excessive use can lead to the so-called soapiness of the paint and reduce its saturation.
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Additives and fillers play an important role in the composition of the paint and in most cases work in favor of the consumer, unless the manufacturer abuses their quantity in pursuit of cheaper production.
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On this our brief digression came to an end. Now you know for sure that watercolor paint is not just an indefinite substance of some color, but a complex substance, each element of which fulfills its purpose.

The article was prepared by the experts of the watercolor laboratory watercolor.lab.

WATERCOLOR AND ITS PROPERTIES (full author's version of the article)

Alexander Denisov, Professor of the Department of Drawing and Painting, Moscow State Technical University. A.N. Kosygin

A watercolor is a water paint. But watercolor is also called the technique of painting, and a separate work made with watercolors. The main quality of watercolor is the transparency and softness of the paint layer applied to a white sheet of paper.

However, the apparent simplicity and ease with which a professional artist creates his paintings in watercolor is deceptive. Watercolor painting requires mastery of the brush, the ability to accurately place paint on the surface of the paper - from a wide bold fill to a clear final stroke. This requires knowledge of how watercolor paints behave on different types of paper, what effect they give when applied to each other, what paints can be used to write on wet paper using the “a la prima” technique, and at the same time they will remain the same juicy and saturated. .

Watercolor is a very ancient technique. During the Renaissance, Albrecht Dürer created wonderful watercolors. They still sound very modern, they amaze with freshness, purity, lightness of colors. The heyday of watercolor in Europe falls on the eighteenth century. She attracted the special attention of painters - romantics. by the most famous master watercolors in England was W. Turner, who discovered the enormous possibilities of this technique in creating romantic images of nature. He perfected his watercolor technique by working on a wet sheet of paper, which created the effect of a soft transition from one color to another.

In Russia in the first half of the 19th century, the rise of watercolor painting is associated with the name of K. Bryullov. The artist used a variety of techniques: he painted in one layer at once, put paint in two or three layers on the dry surface of the paper, and repeatedly painted details with a thin brush. At the same time, watercolors retained freshness, transparency and airiness.

Beautiful watercolors were created by I. Kramskoy, N. Yaroshenko, V. Polenov, V. Serov, I. Repin, V. Surikov, A. Ivanov. The watercolors of M. Vrubel are very characteristic. They delight with an abundance of the finest color and tone transitions, luminous highlights, and movement. Even the most insignificant objects depicted by the artist are filled with meaning and charm - flowers, stones, shells, waves, clouds ...

In the visual arts, watercolor occupies a special place because it can create both picturesque, and graphic, and decorative works - depending on the tasks that the artist sets for himself. The possibilities of watercolor are wide - its colors are sometimes juicy and ringing, sometimes airy, barely perceptible, sometimes dense and tense.

The watercolorist must have a developed sense of color, know the possibilities of different types of paper and the features of the watercolor paints with which he works.

Now there are a huge number of different companies, both in Russia and abroad, producing watercolors, but not all of them meet the high requirements that artists who work in the technique of watercolor painting place on them. Comparing the advantages and disadvantages of professional and semi-professional paints does not make sense, because. their differences are obvious, and it is difficult to confuse them. Our task is to test modern professional watercolor paints from various world manufacturers and see what capabilities they have and for which specific technique they are suitable.

For testing, we took several sets of watercolors: AQUAFINE (DALER-ROWNEY, England), VENEZIA (MAIMERI, Italy), "STUDIO"(JSC "GAMMA", Moscow), "WHITE NIGHTS" (Factory of artistic paints, St. Petersburg).

For an artist involved in watercolor painting, both the paints themselves and the convenience of using them play an important role. Taking a box of paints DALER-ROWNEY "AQUAFINE", it turned out that it was almost impossible to determine at a glance which colors were in front of us - black, blue, dark red and brown looked like the same dark spot without any significant color differences, and only yellow, ocher, scarlet and light green had their own own color. The rest of the colors had to be determined empirically, trying each color on the palette. And in the future, while working on a watercolor sheet, this significantly interfered and slowed down the creative process. Although the work itself with these paints leaves a pleasant feeling, because. they blend easily and give subtle watercolor transitions. It is also convenient that the paints are easily picked up on a brush and gently lay down on paper.

There is also a significant drawback of these paints - when dried, they lose their tonal saturation quite strongly, and when working on wet paper using the “ala prima” technique, they lose both tonal and color saturation by almost half, and it is possible to achieve contrast painting only on dry paper. , overlapping several layers of previously laid strokes. At the same time, the paints do not give a transparent layer, but lay down like gouache, overlapping the previous color.

Paints of the Italian company MAIMERI "VENEZIA" - soft watercolor in tubes. These paints impress with their external design, impressive 15 ml tubes for watercolor - the aesthetics of supplying good expensive art paints, where everything is thought out and works to ensure that they are chosen when buying. But now we are interested in the most important thing - how convenient they are to work with, and how pigments retain their properties and color characteristics when interacting with watercolor paper.

Already the first strokes showed that the paints are worthy of the attention of artists professionally involved in watercolor painting - a good color palette, juicy blues, reds, transparent yellows, ochers gently interact with each other, creating additional color nuances of watercolor technique. Unfortunately, brown and black pigments, even with repeated application of a smear to a smear, do not gain the desired tonal saturation. Black paint, even with multi-layer prescription, looks like sepia. There is a significant inconvenience when working with these paints - since watercolor in tubes is soft and squeezed onto the palette, then with saturated painting, the pigment is not always evenly drawn onto the brush and also unevenly falls on the surface of the paper. During glazing, when paints are repeatedly applied to the previous dried layers, these shortcomings are not very noticeable, but when working on a damp paper surface using the “ala prima” technique, this greatly interferes and crawls out in uneven clots of the paint layer, which, when dried, destroys the integrity of the put stroke . Soft watercolors are more suitable for classical painting, although with some experience with these paints and in the wet technique, the watercolorist creates magnificent examples of modern painting.

The next paints that we took for the test are a set of watercolors "STUDIO" , produced by OJSC GAMMA. Twenty-four colors - the palette is not inferior to the best samples of foreign professional watercolors. Four types of blue - from classic ultramarine to turquoise, a good selection of yellow, ocher, sienna, red, along with other colors create a rich color scheme.

When working with glazing on a dry surface, the paints give a transparent layer, and when repeated, they gain tone and color well, without clogging the structure of watercolor paper. The pigments mix well and apply evenly on the sheet. In the “ala prima” technique, the paints give a uniform stroke without any problems, gently flowing into each other, creating a mass of the finest watercolor nuances, complementing the already rich color palette. As a long-time watercolor artist, I was somewhat surprised not to find in this set the emerald green paint that is present in all professional sets of the world's watercolor paint manufacturers, and the green one, which was supposed to replace the emerald green, "sounds" more muffled.

Among the shortcomings, one can be noted - some colors, such as blue-green, viridian green, ocher red and neutral black, with a thicker, covering stroke, leave a brilliant mark after drying. In this case, the watercolor binder - an aqueous solution of vegetable glue - gum arabic, comes out, concentrating in dense strokes, it creates protective layer pigment, but at the same time, unevenly drying, it remains a brilliant spot. This does not contribute to the overall perception of the matte sheet, but in exhibition halls with directional spot lighting, such places begin to glare, preventing viewers from fully seeing the written work. But, knowing the features of specific colors, this disadvantage is easy to avoid. Well mixed paint gives an even covering layer, remaining matte after drying. Otherwise, the paints are superior to many similar world samples.

And the last set that we decided to test is artistic watercolor paints, which are very popular among watercolor artists, produced by the WHITE NIGHTS Artistic Paint Plant of St. Petersburg. Colors familiar from childhood. More than one generation of artists created their works with paints produced by this particular factory. Many watercolorists, sorting through their sketches, written thirty years ago in the harsh conditions of the Arctic, long trips to Central Asia, V extreme conditions The polar regions can proudly say that the colors have stood the test of time, they have retained their saturation, juiciness, freshness, it seems that the sheets were written quite recently, but a considerable period has passed. It was the distant seventies...

Now in front of me is a modern box of watercolor artistic paints "WHITE NIGHTS" released in 2005. The color is easily drawn into the bristle of the brush and just as easily falls on a white sheet of watercolor paper. The color is evenly distributed over the surface in both thick and transparent strokes, after drying it remains matte without losing its saturation. In the “ala prima” technique, on a wet sheet of paper, paints give a lot of the thinnest watercolor transitions, smoothly flowing into each other, but at the same time, thicker drawing strokes retain their shape and saturation. The colorful layer does not clog the structure of the paper, it gives it the opportunity to glow from the inside, and even with repeated copying, it retains its watercolor. Nothing prevents creative process when working with these paints.

The next task that we have set for ourselves is to find out the characteristic features of the behavior of watercolors when using common techniques that watercolor artists use when writing their works. During painting, while the watercolor is not yet dry, it can be removed with a hard piece of cardboard, a metal blade or a brush handle, leaving thin light lines and small planes, and after drying, it becomes possible to wash the desired areas almost to a white sheet of paper. It is almost impossible to do this with a brush, so we used a pattern and a sea sponge for our purpose.

After the DALER-ROWNEY "AQUAFINE" paints » strokes lay down on a watercolor sheet - we removed a layer of color from the surface of the paper with a metal blade. Light, almost white lines turned out without difficulty - in the raw form, the paints are easily manageable. When the watercolor layer was dry, we tried to wash it off with a pattern and a sponge. It turned out that it is not possible to wash it to white. The color has penetrated the glued surface of the sheet and has been absorbed into the fiber of the paper pulp. This means that such paints must be painted in one session for sure, without subsequent flush corrections.

The same test, carried out with MAIMERI "VENEZIA" paints, showed that soft paints are not completely removed when scratched with a blade, leaving jammed edges and color underpainting, and when the paint layer is completely dry using a sponge and pattern, the color is washed off selectively, in depending on the density and thickness of the applied smears.

Watercolor paints Russian manufacturers JSC GAMMA "STUDIO" and paints produced by the Plant of artistic paints of St. Petersburg "WHITE NIGHTS" can be combined into one group because there are no significant differences in the use of techniques in this test between them.

The semi-moist surface is almost completely removed with a blade, a piece of hard cardboard, a brush handle, from a thin line to a wider surface, and after complete drying along the pattern, you can almost completely wash off the watercolor layer, which of course will not be completely white, but close to it. Paints that do not wash off to white include: carmine, kraplak and violet-pink.

▼ "STUDIO" (JSC "GAMMA")

▼ "WHITE NIGHTS" (Factory of artistic paints)

The basis of watercolor paint is a colored pigment, which is in high concentration in suspension, and in the process of drying it scatters over the entire surface of the canvas, penetrating inside and coloring it. In factory watercolors, as a binder, most often used natural materials such as gum arabic or propylene glycol. Each manufacturer has its own secrets of the unique composition of the suspension - this is the main (key) composition.

Watercolor paint is a water-soluble material, it is possible to achieve this effect due to the binders and pigments in its composition, they do not dissolve in water. Pigments can be divided into several categories: natural inorganic (natural or metallic pigments from natural deposits), synthetic inorganic (natural or metallic pigments formed by combining chemical reagents and ores made on industrial production), natural organic (pigments created on the basis of animal or plant materials), synthetic organic (pigments - based on carbon (most often composed of petroleum compounds). Today, there is such a practice that artists who paint their canvases mainly for sales, more often use materials based on synthetic pigments in their work.In a broad sense, it is by the amount of paint pigment that you can determine the difference between the masterpieces of professional artists and the works of students, in the canvases of painters you can observe more pigments.If you want to know more about this topic - We advise you to read the article "How watercolor paints are made".

Types of watercolor paint

There are certain types of mass-produced watercolor paint: paints in metal tubes, reminiscent of the consistency toothpaste, similar to small cakes in a small plastic form, in order for them to become workable - you need to add a lot of water and liquid paints.

Tubes and bowls

In the 17th and 18th century, artists extracted pigment from plants and minerals and tried to make it themselves from gum arabic, granulated sugar and water. The first set of watercolors was created at the end of the 18th century by Thomas and William Reeves (William and Thomas Reeves), and in 1832 it was finalized by Winsor and Newton. They made the paints wetter and decided to replace the wooden box with a neat china bowl wrapped in foil, making the paints more mobile and easier to work with.

In 1846, tube paints first appeared: Winston and Newton introduced them as a more advanced option. oil paints, which the firm first introduced in 1841. For more information on the invention of the paint tube and how it influenced Impressionism, see Impressionism and Photography.

Liquid watercolors

Liquid watercolors are concentrated liquid substances that can range from 1 to 8 ounces (28 to 224 gr.) or in even smaller bottles, depending on the manufacturer's brand. They give a bright, deep color, which, with the addition of water, acquires a certain blur and pale shades. Such paints are more suitable for working with an airbrush than for the standard method of applying material with a brush to canvas. The intensity of the color and the thickness of the paint depends on the manufacturer, but based on their general characteristics, we can say that they are more suitable for younger students than professional artists.

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