With watercolour, you can quickly achieve a finished work. It might take you several tries to get it, but…ah, the elation in achieving it!

Watercolours were popularised in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries as a drawing tool, used outside and for travelling, to make coloured sketches and finished drawings, which could then be referenced for studio-based oilpainting.

With time, watercolour developed its own reputation as a painting medium, and artists began making very finished works that emphasised the transparent nature of the paint. New Zealand’s Rita Angus was a master at controlling transparent glazes of exceptional delicacy, sometimes spending years on a work. It is difficult to see how she achieved such results, but works such as “Douglas Lilburn” showed how this versatile paint can convert from a quick drawing tool into a formidable medium for masterpieces.

Today, watercolour is being used in remarkable new ways – primers developed for watercolour by Schmincke and Golden allow it to be painted on canvas; new mediums expand the appearance of the paint, adding texture, iridescence, and waterproofing; and art school students have re-discovered it as a fast and effective way to resolve short deadlines and bring it into the contemporary context. Watercolour also plays an important part in mixed-media and abstract work, with its quick, spontaneous character and unique look.

Made with natural resins and highly concentrated pigments, artists’ quality watercolours behave and look like no other paint. The seemingly random nature of watercolours interaction with water can create highly abstract wet-in-wet effects, though this technique is also used to achieve seamless graduation, such as for sky. Colour can be lifted out of wet paper to create highlights, but still - every mark shows, and a mixture of Zen meditation, draughtsman’s confidence and a slacker attitude can be required to attain the best result. A glass of wine may also help!

We love Schmincke’s Horadam Watercolours, which have been recognised for over 100 years as the best possible quality. Each colour is formulated by a unique recipe, using traditional and outstanding new pigments of exceptional brilliance, with vintage Gum Arabic and a precise amount of Ox Gall, which provides utmost control of the flow of colour. 70 of the 110 colours are made from a single pigment only, so that mixed colours are clean and pure. Schmincke also produce a range of modern watercolour mediums that break the traditional concepts of watercolour by allowing you to paint on canvas, on textured grounds, to make the watercolour itself textured, waterproof and even iridescent.

Watercolours are available in tubes or “pans”, which are moist cakes of watercolour, and Schmincke make the best, in a process that takes weeks for each colour.

However you choose to use this spontaneous paint, the original intent of watercolour is still strong – a convenient, portable, and fast painting system to use outdoors and when travelling. How far you take it is up to you!




Gouache (“gwaash”) is an opaque watercolour that has its origins in tempera, then in pre-digital graphic design, and now is a versatile fine art medium. Gouache can be thinned with water to create a wash, though it remains more cloudy than watercolour, and it can be laid down in solid areas. Working over the top can be tricky – you get “one stroke” before the underlying colour will begin to shift, though this re-solubility can be very useful if you wish to correct a mark, or to work back into the paint.



Get a few Horadam watercolours. As you dilute your paint with a lot of water, the strength of the colour must be very good or it will all look rather muddy. Three tubes or pans of Horadam will out-perform a dozen student colours and give you clean, brilliant results for a better price.

Get one good watercolour brush that holds plenty of colour but comes to a fine tip. The best brushes for watercolour are made from natural hair, such as sable and squirrel, as these hold the most fluid. Good watercolour brushes are expensive but they last a lifetime.