Art Blog #54

Paul Connor
May 30
2 min read

Updated: Jun 2

A look at watercolours featuring the art of Lora Zombie

Lora Zombie was born in Russia, in 1990. She decided she wanted to be an artist at a very early age, and the self-taught painter is now a top seller on the urban art scene. Over the past few years she has progressed from having a massive following of online fans, to creating t-shirt and phone case designs, and is now breaking into the gallery scene and branching far outside her native Russia.

Lora’s work has been exhibited in Los Angeles, Toronto, New York and Russia – bringing in the interest of notable collectors and fans worldwide. Influenced and inspired by music, her multi-disciplinary talents are evident in the diverse work found in her portfolio.

Her work is colourful, fun and clever. Lora uses watercolours as her primary material, letting the paint freely trickle down the page, or flicking paint directly at the canvas. Her pieces are often hand finished with pen. The end result is vibrant, sometimes with a dark sense of humour attached.

Watercolour paint is an ancient form of painting, if not the most ancient form of art itself. In East Asia, watercolour painting with inks is referred to as brush painting or scroll painting. In Chinese, Korean and Japanese painting it has been the dominant medium, often in monochrome black or browns, often using inkstick or other pigments. India, Ethiopia and other countries have long watercolour painting traditions as well.

Many Western artists, especially in the early 19th century, used watercolour primarily as a sketching tool in preparation for the "finished" work in oil or engraving. Until the end of the eighteenth century, traditional watercolours were known as 'tinted drawings'

Watercolour art dates back to the cave paintings of Palaeolithic Europe and has been used for manuscript illustration since at least Egyptian times, with particular prominence in the European Middle Ages.

However, its continuous history as an art medium begins with the Renaissance.

The German Northern Renaissance artist Albrecht Durer (1471–1528), who painted several fine botanical, wildlife, and landscape watercolours, is generally considered among the earliest examples of watercolour.

Several factors contributed to the spread of watercolour painting during the 18th century, particularly in England. Among the elite and aristocratic classes, watercolour painting was one of the incidental adornments of a good education; mapmakers, military officers, and engineers valued it for its usefulness in depicting properties, terrain, fortifications, field geology, and for illustrating public works or commissioned projects.

Watercolour paint consists of four principal ingredients: a pigment; gum Arabic as a binder to hold the pigment in suspension; additives like glycerine, ox gall, honey, and preservatives to alter the viscosity, hiding, durability or color of the pigment and vehicle mixture; and, evaporating water, as a solvent used to thin or dilute the paint for application.

The more general term water media refers to any painting medium that uses water as a solvent and that can be applied with a brush, pen, or sprayer. This includes most inks, watercolours, temperas, caseins, gouaches, and modern acrylic paints.