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Ancient Egyptian art typified this use of relatively opaque water based paints. All the pigments used with the exception of Egyptian Blue Frit tended to naturally make opaque or semi opaque paints. Egyptian Blue Frit was dark so its natural translucency still covered well. Colors tended to be applied as pure colors with a minimum of mixing if any. This paint could cover well anyway but was often applied thinly over a layer of white.

It wasn't until after the widespread introduction of paper and changed art tastes that required the use of a wide range of colors, many of which were transparent that the modern materials of watercolor or water color and gouache were born. The idea of adding gums to pigments to help them stick to surfaces is ancient, and the inks used by medieval illuminators in bibles was quite like watercolor in many ways, but it was Durer wanting to do some 'sketching' on his journey to Italy who was probably the first artist to use watercolor in a way that we would recognize in the form of transparent washes on paper for its own sake. His apprenticeship had been in a studio making woodcuts for the Nuremberg Chronicle and some of the woodcuts were tinted with transparent colors in gum and it seems this was the beginning of Durer's famous use of both media. On this site you may get nice reproductions of European watercolor, watercolor painting, water color, watercolor paintings, painting, paintings, art paintings, paintings for sale, artwork, fine art, European oil painting, European oil paintings, European painting.

Gouache has an origin lost in time but we do know that the name may have originally been applied to Tempera by the Italians and that the idea of adding chalk to make watercolor opaque developed some time later. As the ancients knew, opacity is valuable for many ways of painting, but the new idea of adding chalk in carefully measured amounts to interact with and enhance the color meant that virtually any color could now be opaque. Gouache as we understand the term has been in existence for at least 200 years. During the late 19th and the 20th century the demand for 'designers colors' meant that gouache ceased to be regarded for a time as serious art materials as bright pigments of dubious character became normal in most ranges of gouache color. Today as designers abandon paint for photoshop, gouache is returning to a focus on the needs of professional fine artist's. There are many that love the juicy qualities of these paints. I am sure the ancient Egyptians would totally agree.

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