Characters of the War of 1812

by Judi McWilliams

ELIZABETH SIMCOE – WATERCOLOUR ARTIST!

Over the past, I have written about the War of 1812 from the barracks, rations, clothing to weapons. Today I would like to write about one of my passions, and that of a famous watercolour artist Elizabeth Simcoe. As a professional Watercolour artist, for about 25 years, I was very interested to read about Elizabeth Simcoe. For those of you who don’t know what Watercolour is... simply, Wikipedia describes it as follows ... “The term watercolor refers to paints that use water soluble, complex carbohydrates as a binder. Originally (16th to 18th centuries) watercolor binders were sugars and/or hide glues, but since the 19th century the preferred binder is natural gum Arabic, with glycerin and/or honey as additives to improve plasticity and dissolvability of the binder, and with other chemicals added to improve product shelf life Bodycolor is a watercolor made as opaque as possible by a heavy pigment concentration, and gouache is a watercolor made opaque by the addition of a colorless opacifier (such as chalk or zinc oxide). Modern acrylic paints are based on a completely different chemistry that uses water soluble acrylic resin as a binder." There are many techniques used and many different qualities of paints. This leads to my original question about preservation of Elizabeth’s works. Even back in the early centuries, the paper had compounds to preserve the works of art. This is an entire other subject matter. What interests me currently, is the War of 1812 and the people who lived during these times. Elizabeth Simcoe was just such a woman.
(To Be Continued)