The southwest attracts many fine artists as the colors of the land and its natural beauty are a perfect subject for the watercolor medium painter. Watercolor paint has many properties which can be utilized from soft washes to the application of delicate intricate detail.

Unlike any other medium, the application of the paint can be difficult to control. Sometimes it can be touch and go. But not all mistakes are disastrous. They can work to an advantage with skill and imagination.

Other water based paints are acrylic, gouache [which can be mistaken as poster paint], and tempera. Watercolor paint if mixed with egg has been a substitute for tempera, taking all the qualities of pure tempera lacking only the richness and translucence obtained with pure pigment. Mixed with clove oil to make the tempera paint.

Watercolor paint can be applied to silk as well as white paper using washes or puddled into more intense passages. The pigment is held together with a gum derived from acacia trees. This has been a less expensive way of making a painting than the methods required for oil paintings, which involves canvas and stretcher and of course a much easier method of transporting if needed to paint outdoors. This became very popular method with artists in the 1930s.

Inspirations of watercolor paintings can be found in the works of Tom Hill, Norman Rockwell, Zoltan Szabo, Tony Couch, Ted Kautzsky, Charles Burchfiels, Edward Hopper, John Singer Sargent, Irving Shapiro, Frank Wilcox, Edgar A. Whitney, Vincent van Gogh, Fred Williams and Tom Lynch. These are few of the many who have inspired the paths before us.
The Harwood Museum has a permanent collection of outstanding works by John Marin, Victor Higgins, Cady [Henry] Wells, Keith Crown, Michio Takayama, Dean Porter and others. Most of these were painted between the 1920s and 1990s.