Watercolour Painting - Some Basics - Watercolour, a History?

Watercolour has come in and out of fashion many times. The paint is made from natural pigments mixed with a water-soluble gum that acts as a binder. It was believed watercolour painting began in England at the start of the 1700s. Now its known the Egyptians used a form of watercolour, over 3000 years ago, Irish monks used it to illustrate the Book of Kells and other manuscripts between 600-800AD. Oils are considered more durable so watercolour fell out of fashion with artists and became an artist's sketching aid. Those sketches would later possibly become the oil paintings which now sit in the world's galleries. Then in the 1700s watercolour came back into its own when a studio, opened by Dr Thomas Munro, for young aspiring watercolourists releases a William Turner on to the world. Turner's work is legendary the world over and still the inspiration to many watercolourists.