Negative Painting - Again

Negative painting in its simplest form:

To do a simple demonstration/exercise to understand negative painting, we drew some simple shapes on white paper, just a few. (The lower picture) Then we painted around those shapes with a light value. (White shapes were painted around with pink)(You can vary the colors, but the value is light here). When dry, we added a few more shapes, overlapping some of them. Then we painted around all the shapes with the second value. This top picture shows more pink shapes added, and then painted around with blue. 

More hearts were added, then everything was painted around with a darker value blue

.

Finally, more shapes added, then everything painted around with dark blue and purple.

There is a similar exercise in my blog of Nov 1, 2018

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/8812132386157895665/2455209220739325711

We also made a background for next week's process, a negative painting over a background with texture.

You make that by wetting your paper, then randomly add color, keeping it fairly pale. You can cover it with plastic wrap, bubble wrap, wax paper, or other texture making materials.You can salt it, score it with the edge of a credit card or comb. Just make some texture on it. Leave any plastic wrap on it until it is dry completely. Save it for next week.

Here are some previous blogs on negative painting:

Trees:  https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/8812132386157895665/8804002223729928397

Peaches--part negative/part positive: https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/8812132386157895665/1859509093000056145

Lily: https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/8812132386157895665/633548238412726277

Here is a good YouTube describing the process, by Elaine Rimmelin. I chose this one out of many because I wanted you to see how she used several colors, not just one color for each layer; that the emphasis is on increasing the VALUE of each layer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iynw_WaVdQs&list=PLi6GQwdqc7fqtIPe3H8Ovu-Ml1OK1Ed00&index=2

Experimenting with a Limited Palette

WARM AND COOL

Trying to figure out what is "warm" or "cool" in paint terms can be confusing. This is actually just a way of saying how a color makes you feel: yellows/oranges/reds are generally associated with the sun and a warm day. Blues and violets are associated with cold. 

But each color has a warm and cool on the spectrum, but it is actually more that it has a BIAS or it leans toward a warm or cool color. Example, all blues are COOL in that big category of warm or cool. But some lean toward green, which gives them a green bias. Other lean toward violet, which gives them a violet bias, so they are considered a "warm" blue.  Yellows are ALWAYS warm: but they can have a BIAS. A lemony yellow has a green bias....you don't see any orange in it. So that yellow is a cool yellow. But it's still a warm color.

Painting with a Limited Palette

Why paint with only a few colors?

The experiment today was to choose a set of primaries and see how many colors you can make with it.

You can change how much of each color is in a mix. Make light values and dark values. Make browns and grays, and neutralized colors by adding their complement.

Here is a set of 4 pictures I did that demonstrate. The colors I used were permanent rose, French Ultramarine, and a medium yellow.

Top left, I mostly used the French Ultramarine and rose to make snowy blues and violets. I mixed all three to make the brown for the tree, and muted the red barn with some blue/yellow to create gray.

Picture #2, the spring scene. Same colors. The blue was muted a little with an orange made from the yellow and red; the green is French and yellow; pink is just very watered permanent rose.

The summer scene: yellow and blue to make a natural green; a little yellow in the rose to make the barn bright red. And in the fall scene, orange made from the rose and yellow; grass a more muted green by putting a little red in the green mixture.

Four season, four different feelings, with 3 colors.

So choose three primaries you want to experiment with. Here's a hint: what is the most important color that you want to make stand out?  If you want a pretty green, choose a blue and yellow that leans toward green. If purple needs to look pretty, choose a cobalt or French, which leans toward purple, and a magenta or permanent rose which lean toward purple.

Do a sample of each color and the secondaries (orange/violet/green) you can make with them.

Then find a picture with simple shapes and experiment to see how many colors you can create.

Here I used a warm yellow (Quin Gold); Cool Red (Alizarin); and Warm Blue (French ultramarine)

In the one on the left, I opted for a lot of grays, with a pure yellow shining. (Grays are just opposite colors, or all three colors, mixed together. The orangery the mix, the browner it will be; the bluer the mix, the grayer it will be) In the second one I began making a very warm background with the gold and red, which makes the blue in the lighthouse stand out.

In this third one, I muted the blue a little for the sky, leaving some soft whites for clouds. I mixed some greens for the hill in the foreground. The brown is a thicker version of adding all three colors.

You can also try different combinations until you get a combination you like.

Why try a limited palette?

• Color Harmony and Cohesion: Because all colors are mixed from the same few pigments, the finished piece possesses a natural, unified, and harmonious appearance.
• Improved Technical Skill: It forces artists to master color mixing, understand color relationships, and focus on the "value" (lightness or darkness) of a color rather than just its hue.
• Simplified Decision Making: A limited selection reduces the overwhelming choices of a full palette, which helps in avoiding "muddy" colors and simplifies the painting process.
• Efficiency and Cost: It is more economical and requires carrying fewer materials, making it ideal for plein air painting.
• Specific Mood Creation: Using a restricted range allows the artist to evoke specific, deliberate, and sometimes moody feelings in their work. 

Before I make a detailed painting, if I take a few minutes to do a small version of the basic shapes and paint it different ways, I can make better decisions about what colors to use. This avoids making mistakes that would be hard to correct later on.

PAiNTING WET TO DRY

One question we had was "Where do you begin a painting? With the center of focus? With background?"

That doesn't really have one answer, but I found this interesting video that you might find helpful, especially with landscapes.

painting and chocolate landscape wet into wet

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/35H-vH8qF_I

Below I tried a version of that process doing a lighthouse.

First, I wet the entire paper, making sure it was wet but not puddly. Just shiny. I painted in the softest blends. As the paper loses its shine you can paint in things that will have soft edges or are more distant.

The dryer the paper becomes, the more control you have over shape and edges. So on the left I painted all my soft edges and distant hills. I left the lighthouse area dryer. Then when it was completely dry, I could paint in the hard edges and details of the lighthouse.

WATERCOLOR MIXING

 SOME HELPFUL TIPS FOR COLOR MIXING

I wanted to help students become more confident in their color mixing. It seems to be a problem even for more experienced painters. So today the emphasis was on color in watercolor, rather than technique.

WATERCOLOR has unique properties that other mediums do not. They include: transparency, flow, granulation (some), staining or lifting, and permanence. (some colors, such as opera, are notoriously "fugitive," meaning they fade with light and time). But for now, we are mostly dealing with their color(hue)  and how to make secondary and tertiary colors, how to neutralize color, and how to change its value.

I generally try to use 6 basic colors: a warm and a cool Red (warm=toward orange; cool = toward violet or pink); a warm and cool blue (warm=toward violet, like French ultramarine; cool=toward green, like Pthalo or cerulean); and a warm and a cool yellow (warm=toward orange, like new gamboge; cool = toward green like lemon or hansa light) PLUS trusty burnt sienna for texture. From these colors you can create almost any color you want.

We started with an exercise using just six colors. Make greens using mixes of your 2 yellows and 2 blues. You should end up with 4 color mixes: warm yellow+warm Blue; warm yellow +cool blue; cool yellow+cool blue; cool yellow + warm Blue. 

Make oranges using mixes of reds and yellows. Make Violets using mixes of your reds and blues.

I showed several methods of creating colors--in a journal, on a sheet of paper, mixing on palette or mixing on paper. Different students chose different ways, but all should be labeled as to what color was used.

In the method below, I taped off rectangles. I wet each rectangle and painted yellow on one side and a blue on the other side, allowing them to mingle to a green in the middle of the rectangle. On the sheet on the right, I used the same colors, but began mixing on the palette, the left color being the pure yellow, the right being the pure blue, with a little blue added to each stripe to get variations of green. And I labeled the colors (HYL= hansa yellow light: FUM is French ultramarine, etc.)

Note the bottom two are unusual: yellow with paynes gray and yellow with neutral tint make green!

In the method below I painted pure color at each end of the stripe and let them run together.

We used burnt sienna and French ultramarine blue to create grays.

Now, I don't really like the terms "warm" and "cool" when color mixing, but that is how the art world refers to them.  I prefer the term "leans toward". For example, if I want a "pretty" color of green, I want a yellow that "leans toward" green (doesn't have any orange in it) such as lemon or hansa light PLUS a blue that "leans toward" green, such a Pthalo or Cerulean or cyan. If I want a green that is more natural and earthy, I'll pick one primary that doesn't lean toward green, and one that does.

Below is my blog of Jan of 2025 that describes this split primary way of thinking.

A previous posting on how to make a split primary color wheel.

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/8812132386157895665/5080489554816836458

Hue, Chroma, and Value defined

https://www.watercoloraffair.com/the-dimensions-of-color/

Above is a pdf that defines these terms and why it is helpful to understand them. Hue is basically the color name. Value is how dark that color is, and Chroma is how INTENSE that color is. You change or neutralize the hue, often by adding small amounts of its complement, to change the intensity or Chroma.

Practice taking a color and see what neutrals you can create by adding a little of the complement; then a little more; then a little more.

COLOR INFLUENCE: TINTING STRENGTH

Some color have more influence--tinting strength-- on other colors and some have very little. Yellow has the least.

So if you are mixing a color with yellow in it, then start with a lot of yellow, then gradually add the blue or red (both of which have stronger influence). IF you tried it the opposite way, beginning with the stronger color, you might take a long time adding yellow, then adding more yellow....  Another reason to start with the weaker color is that yellow especially is easily contaminated. One speck of red and your yellow is no longer yellow, but orange. But if your clean brush pulls out yellow first, it's less likely to get contaminated.

Louise DeMasi: 13 essential tips for mixing watercolor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_KhI2auRZA&t=829s

I love her paintings, and she gives some helpful ideas and reasons why they help with color mixing. I think it's only about 20 minutes long. Some tips are simple, such as having 2 water cups and a clean palette and using thicker paints from the tubes for darker colors. 

Two I'd especially pay attention to are:

a. blot excess water from your brush so you don't accidentally dilute your paint more than you want. (so many times people keep trying to add paint to darken an object but the water from the brush keeps the paint light)

and 

b. Don't over-mix your paint....you are not baking a cake that needs to be evenly distributed, but a painting that can show the nuances of a mixed color.