Watercolourists

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Artists who expertly use water-soluble pigments to produce vibrant artworks
2. People who engage in the practice of painting with water-based colors to create various artistic expressions
3. Individuals skilled in the technique of applying transparent pigments mixed with water to generate expressive visuals

Etymology: "Watercolourist" is formed in English from "watercolour" plus the suffix "-ist", and the suffix itself has a long journey behind it. It descends from Ancient Greek "-istēs", an agent ending used for someone who practises or follows a craft, which passed into Latin as "-ista" and then into Old French as "-iste" before arriving in Middle English as "-ist". Through that route, the ending came to mark a person devoted to a particular practice, so a watercolourist is someone who works in that medium. The base word "watercolour" is the older and more transparent half. It combines "water" with "colour", naming paint thinned with water instead of the oil or tempera used on many earlier panels. Since the suffix attaches to a noun to name a practitioner, the compound gives a plain, literal label: a person whose craft is painting in watercolour.