Watercolour is the medium of preference for most pleine-aire painters and is a distinguished tradition for English travellers abroad. While the camera records everything in complete and perfect detail, the painter selects the essence, eliminates the irrelevant and aims to record the story and the specifics of a place with an economy and simplicity that is timeless in its message.

The pleine-aire presence also provides an immediacy and freshness which is hard to achieve in a studio and the availability of good paper, a wide range of quality colours and brushes all assist in portability, at the same time challenging the painter to exploit the unique characteristic of the medium. A picture is worth a thousand words, and this souvenir aims to entertain in a contemporary manner.