Watercolor mediums help artists to alter and enhance the characteristics of their watercolour paints. By adding the appropriate medium, you can further expand your options by altering the working properties of that paint. Artists can add granulation or texture, improve blending and lifting, create iridescence, reduce drying time, and so on. Mediums do not have the ability to enhance lightfastness or create transparency in a paint that is not ordinarily transparent. Mediums do provide watercolorists with almost limitless opportunities to apply many variations to their watercolor paintings without compromising quality.

It is important for all artists to understand how each particular watercolor medium works with the watercolor paints that they use in their paintings. Each medium is different so it is imperative that you read and understand the directions prior to use. With all of the possibilities that watercolor mediums provide it is easy to see why each artist should have at least one within their watercolor art supply kit!