An artist working on a watercolor using a round brush Love's Messenger, an 1885 watercolor and tempera by Marie Spartali Stillman Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), also aquarelle (French: [akwaʁɛl]; from Italian diminutive of Latin aqua 'water'), [1] is a painting method [2] in which the paints are made of pigments suspended in a ...