What is transparent watercolour?

by Tissa Hewavitarane

Although the watercolour medium is transparent, it need not be watery or weak. Of course, softness and subtlety are equally important at times and the medium adapts to those requirements. Only when greatly diluted with water it becomes transparent. Colours really see through. Slightly diluted they appear translucent and when applied with little or no water, they are nearly opaque.

But the term transparent watercolour is used to differentiate the paints from those with definite opaqueness. The latter use opaque white to make the colour lighter and are known as gouache, casein, tempera and show card paint. Transparent watercolour uses no white paint, but the white of the paper as part of the medium.

Lighter tints are obtained by thinning the colour with more water, allowing the white paper to lighten the hue. Acrylic paint may be used in their way, transparent (when thinned with medium or water) or opaque (when unthinned). Transparent watercolour then is a method as much as a material. It is a method of painting that allows the white of the paper to sparkle through the applied colour.

A method of putting down layers of overlapping colours, like sheets of stained glass. This overlapping and see-through quality is what gives watercolour its unique depth and sparkle. The running watery transparent, overlapping and sparkling effect is the special feel of watercolour.

General practice

Building from light to dark is the general practice in working with aquarelle. Light colours go on first, with the whites protected unpainted. Medium and darker values are brushed on as the painting proceeds, until the ultimate darkest value is aid on.

This method allows for little or no lightening of areas at a later time (although that may be done in a number of ways.) Opaque watercolours can be worked from either light-to-dark because areas can be painted white or lightened at will.

When we discuss transparent watercolour we will not consider all watercolours or water soluble media, only transparent and worked in ways that enhance the medium's transparency.

Tempera, gouche, casein and heavily applied acrylic paint are not transparent by their nature. They may be extremely thinned with water to become nearly transparent, and can produce beautiful effects of their own. But they are not transparent.

Waterbased media are among man's oldest painting substances, dating back to the cave walls of Atamira, Lascaux, and the Sahara. Tgyptian scribes diluted colour in water, added a binder and tinted their wall illustrations. Medieval manu were given life with passages of water soluble colour.

Mysterious

The mysterious Etruscans decorated their tombs and urns with a fantastic array of animals and plants, all done in a watercolour of sorts. Roman and Byzantine artists produced tempera by adding egg to their mixtures, and painted on wooden panels.

But the greatest contribution on the transparent medium came from the orient. As early as the 8th century A.D. Nara period, the Japanese were painting on paper with diluted inks, being influenced by contemporary Chinese, Indians and Korean developments. Sumie painting is a distinct art in it self, but it controlled spontaneity is an essential ingredient in watercolour techniques, and forerunner of later developments.

Renaissance artists, however, were responsible for the new interest in watercolour because they used it as a sketching medium prior to making larger oils. It had become a spontaneous and coloured extension of drawing process, a sort of coloured short hand!

Albrecht Durer thought of watercolours as a finished product not only preliminary sketches. Rembrandt and Tieplo added to the importance with vibrant and stimulating works. In France, Delacro used the medium to add a feeling of immediacy and action to his rapidly stroke sketches.

A method of using watercolour without opaque materials was developed by Paul Sandby in England in the 18th century and was called aquarelle.

Opaque

Prior to this time, lighter values were achieved by adding opaque white colour, now the white of the paper became part of the medium, and transparent watercolour was born in England. William Blake and William Turner got things rolling a bit later, giving transparent water its dynamic impetus. Watercolour clubs and societies were formed to aid in exhibiting artists' works, because the medium was still considered a sketching material and not as important as oils. In the latter part of the 19th century American Winslow Hober's series of Bahama paintings pumped increased zest into aquarelle.

Other Americans Prendergast, Sargent and Demuth in the 19th century made a significant progress to uplift the medium. Rench impressionists and post impressionists made extensive use of watercolour, with Cezanne particularly making vast contributions to the development of the medium. The Expressionists also found the immediacy of watercolour an asset in putting their feelings on paper.