Watercolor painting to paints that use water-soluble, complex carbohydrates as a binder. Originally (in the 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 solubility of the binder, and with other chemicals added to improve product shelf life. The term "bodycolor" refers to paint that is opaque rather than transparent. It usually refers to opaque watercolor, known as gouache. Modern acrylic paints use a acrylic resin dispersion as a binder. Watercolor painters before the turn of the 18th
Gum arabic attracts water, ensuring that the oil based ink does not stick to those areas. Gum is also essential to what is sometimes called paper lithography, printing from an image created by a laser printer or photocopier. Gum arabic is also used as a water-soluble binder in fireworks composition. Arabinogalactan is a biopolymer consisting of arabinose and galactose monosaccharides. It is a major component of many plant gums, including gum arabic. 8-5' non cyclic diferulic acid has been identified as covalently linked to carbohydrate moieties of the arabinogalactan-protein fraction. While gum arabic has been harvested in Arabia, Sudan, and West Asia