Watercolor painting has gained popularity as a fine art medium today because of its fresh look and speed of application and clean-up. An artist can achieve many techniques by applying paint in a variety of ways.
Because of its transparency, corrections are tricky and difficult to achieve satisfactorily and not be visible. Many times, the artist has just one shot at painting a sky, mountains, rivers, etc.
After graduation from college, I worked as a merchandise illustrator in a retail store's advertising department illustrating everything from fashions to shoes, handbags, jewelry, and home furnishings. Those illustrations were all done in watercolor, the one "color" was lamp black. The full-color watercolors shown here are all done on Arches 140 lb. cold press paper.