I have been painting with watercolours in a professional capacity since 2014, with the pure intention of inviting you to experience the vibrant beauty of nature.
Painting with watercolours gives a unique blend of depth and dimension, holding a distinctive position within my artistic practice.
The transparency, fluidity, and responsiveness to subtle variations in water make painting with watercolours a medium that demands both precision and restraint. As a result, it has long been associated with qualities such as clarity, delicacy, and disciplined control.
The technical characteristics require high-quality watercolour paints and acid-free rag papers, ensuring that your paintings and prints last for decades without fading.
The quality of the paint is determined by its pigment concentration and the absence of filler. The paper should be acid-free, pure cotton, or high-quality cellulose for long-lasting and vibrant results – 5 of the best watercolour paints – Artists & Illustrators .
Emotional Representation of painting with watercolours.
Watercolour painting can represent many things for artists, depending on their style, intentions, and emotional connection to the medium.
Watercolour is known for its fluidity. Artists often value the way pigments flow unpredictably on wet paper.
The transparent layers of watercolour allow light to bounce through the paint and paper. To many artists, this represents clarity, emotional openness and a sense of delicacy.
Because watercolour is sensitive to every gesture and brushstroke, it reflects the artist’s emotional state. Artists use it to express calmness, serenity and peace, melancholy or nostalgia.
The reason why I paint with watercolours is that it helps me with capturing the harmony of nature; capturing plants, landscapes and animals.
Despite its airy feeling, the discipline of watercolour demands precision as mistakes are difficult to correct, leading to an acceptance of random imperfection.
Watercolours can create powerful images with very few materials. With just water, pigment and paper, I can avoid excess and strip my art down to create beauty of simplicity.
Watercolours feel more personal to me, representing my private thoughts or quiet moments, a direct connection between hand, water and pigment.
The Evolution of Watercolours
There are historical associations with watercolours, particularly in scientific illustration, botanical studies and topographical documentation. Painting with watercolours represents accuracy and faithful observation. Its capacity to capture fine detail and nuanced shifts in tone makes painting with watercolours an ideal instrument for objective record-keeping – https://katefletcherpaintings.co.uk/watercolour-art-history-trends-and-modern-inspiration/ .
As artistic movements evolved, painting with watercolours came to embody more expressive and atmospheric intentions. Romantic and modern artists adopted watercolours as a means to convey transient light, ephemeral moods, and spontaneous gesture.
In contemporary practice, watercolours symbolise transparency of process, immediacy of expression, and a willingness to engage with unpredictability.
Culturally, water-based painting traditions in East Asia imbue the medium with philosophical depth, framing it as an instrument for spiritual discipline, harmony and nature.
Nature is a prominent theme for me in my continual personal pursuit of an essential form, and across contexts, watercolour continues to represent a synthesis of technical mastery and interpretive subtlety.
Although specific techniques are fundamentally different, the unpredictable medium of acrylic pouring also involves the use of water-soluble paints and involves a balance between intentionality and the inherent fluidity of material itself – https://caroleellisart.com/ .
Representation in Art History
Historically, watercolour has carried shifting symbolic meaning. Early watercolourists in the 18th century used the medium for botanical studies, cartography, and scientific illustration. Artists like J.M.W. Turner pushed watercolour into expressive, atmospheric territory before watercolour became widely used for travel sketches and personal visual diaries.
Artists used watercolours for more freedom in the 20th century, taking the liberty to paint gestures and abstraction.
What I particularly enjoy about my environment in the 21st century is the freedom to paint themes of nature. There is a movement across the page, moving like a breath of mist. For me, to paint with watercolours is to write with light. The paper becomes a sky, and the pigments drift like rain, revealing more than they conceal. The transparency of watercolours cannot be hidden, it’s as honest as a memory on a surface that never forgets.
For many, painting with watercolours is an elegant form of meditation when the artist’s movements engage with nature, but, ultimately, the watercolour captures a finite moment in time that feels as if the slightest touch could dissolve the scene.
All of these fleeting moments remind me that beauty within nature is transient and exists in a delicate, half-formed realm.
My chosen medium is not merely pigment and water, but a dialogue between intention and surrender. If you would like to see more artistic dialogue, cast your eyes and open your minds here – https://katefletcherpaintings.co.uk/shop/