Negative Painting on Textured background

Instructions for

Negative Painting #1

Start with a background that you have used texture techniques on:

Salting, Saran wrap, straw blowing, or spattering. LEAVE WHITE,

Especially in the places you want to have as points of interest.

After it is dry, draw on your design. It should have INTERLOCKING

shapes. (This can be leaves, daisies, cone flowers, fish, or any other

repeating shape in different sizes)

The rule is to NOT HAVE ANY TWO NEGATIVE SHAPES

the same distance apart or the same size.

In the first picture you can see the interlocking leaves drawn over the textured paper. In the bottom right corner, you can see where I have begun to paint blue behind the leaves, in the negative space. I've carried that color to the other side of the leaf to avoid looking like a patchwork quilt.

Using a medium value paint, PAINT THE NEGATIVES, or the spaces

between your shapes. This should make all your positive shapes pop

out. You should be able to see whether you have a good design.You can always make them darker later.

When painting these negatives, remember to bring your color through

to other shapes so they don’t look like a patchwork quilt. You want the

illusion that all of that is behind your positive shapes.

When you are happy with the background, you can start on the positive

shapes. The positives are brought out by painting into the shape underneath them,

making that a negative space. (More on that next week)

In the second picture, you can see all the space behind the leaves has been painted in with a medium tone. You begin to see the leaf shapes.

NOTE ON COMPOSITION:

We also talked about the “Golden Mean” of composition. This is the ideal

place to put your center of interest, the natural places your eyes want to go

first. There are many ways of making something “pop” as a center of interest

You can use complementary colors; very light against very dark; harder edges

if most of your surrounding edges are soft; or  a spot of “surprise” color.

WaterColor Class: Textures 1

Instructions for

WC Textures #1

RULE #1:

Always paint on very dry or shiny wet paper. Nothing in between.

Check dryness by touching your finger to unpainted paper, then

touching the painted section. If the paint feels cool or damp to the touch,

it is not dry enough to paint on. If the painted section is still shiny, you

can still add more paint to it.

Divide your paper into four rectangles using masking tapes. The tape

is just there to keep paint of one practice from bleeding into another.

You only need three paints, one of each primary: yellow, blue, red.

Make puddles of each color. (When you put the paint on the paper, the

color will be a medium value, not puddle-y, not thick, but not too thin

and watery. You want it to stay transparent. ALWAYS TRY TO HAVE

YOUR PAINTS DILUTED AND READY so you are not at a critical

point and have to stop to mix paint.

In this picture you see the first section salted; second saran wrap; third straw blowing; fourth spattering. When the paint dried, I lifted a picture of a dog and a circle into the salted section.

Wet the first section with your brush. (You can use a spray bottle to

wet it, since we are using the whole section wet into wet.) Brush in

paints loosely, at least a medium tone. (too light will not show effects)

Apply kosher salt on half of the paint, PAINT MUST BE SHINY,

NOT PUDDLE-Y, and apply popcorn or table salt

to the other half. (To apply salt, take a small pinch, hold about 12”

from the painting, and gently sprinkle. Too much salt will be a pain

to remove.) LET THIS DRY ON ITS OWN. As time goes on, the

salt keeps reacting.

USES: snow, a kittens fur, beards, small white flowers in a field, sand.

On the second section, apply paint wet-into-wet as before. This time,

Crinkle saran wrap and lay it over the wet paint. Weigh it down. Let it

dry on its own.

USES: fast flowing water, reflections in glass, rock, leaves, flowers.

On the third section, make a quarter-sized puddle of paint. Blow it with a straw.

Make another puddle of a different color and blow it with a straw. See how

Many spidery webs you can make with this.

USES: wild grass, jelly fish, just for fun.

On the fourth section, make a wet clean stripe down the center. You

Will be spattering the entire section, but spatters will look different on the

Wet section. To spatter, load your brush (probably a round one) with paint,

Then smack it against your finger or another brush. Use several colors.

On one of the dry sections, lightly spray water to move the paint just a bit.

It will look softer, but not as soft as the wet area.

USES: distant flowers or foliage; rocks or gravel; speckles on an animal,

Rusty metal, old wood.

 After all was dry, we used a stiff lifting or scrubber brush to lighten an area.