Watercolor painting
practice of applying watercolor to a surface
Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), also aquarelle (French: [akwaʁɛl]; from Italian diminutive of Latin aqua 'water'), is a painting method in which the paints are made of pigments suspended in a water-based solution. Watercolor refers to both the medium and the resulting artwork.
The conventional and most common support—material to which the paint is applied—for watercolor paintings is paper, usually special types of watercolor paper. Other supports or substrates include stone, ivory, silk, reed, papyrus, bark papers, plastics, vellum, leather, fabric, wood, and watercolor canvas (coated with a gesso that is specially formulated for use with watercolors). Watercolor paper is often made entirely or partially with cotton. This gives the surface the appropriate texture and minimizes distortion when wet. Watercolor papers are usually cold-pressed papers that provide better texture and appearance. Another variation is hot-pressed watercolor paper, which has a smoother texture and appearance than cold-pressed paper. Transparency is the main characteristic of watercolors. It is caused by the gum binder being absorbed by the paper, leaving a top layer of dispersed pigment particles, through which the paper shimmers.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Watercolor painting” is practice of applying watercolor to a surface. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Watercolor, painting and practice, not as a finished interpretation.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q50030. The Library of Congress control number is sh85145673. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Watercolor painting” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.