This entry was originally posted on Sunday, June 10, 2012
Today's
Sunday Secrets is a question from Hannah in
She
asks, "What is Gum arabic
and why is it in watercolor paint?"
That
is a good question.
Gum
arabic is a gum made from hardened tree sap from the acacia tree.
Gum
arabic has properties that make it glue-like and is a binder used in many
things since it is also edible.
You
would be surprised to know how many things it is used in!
Soda,
candy, and postage stamps, for instance.
Since
it is a natural binder, it is used in watercolor paint to help the pigment bind
to paper.
Without
a binder, the pigments that are in paint would just brush off and act like
chalk.
That
is why we need binders in paint.
To
make sure it stays where we put it.
Gum
arabic is one of the oldest binders for paint.
Another
wonderful binder is egg which is used in egg tempera.
Oil
paints use a drying oil (the most common being linseed oil) that has been
boiled with resin as its binder.
Acrylics,
which have only been around since the 1950s, use an acrylic polymer as the binder.
More
information on gum arabic can be found here
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