SOME MORE ABOUT NEGATIVE PAINTING

You can read about some more negative painting on the 6/3/16 and 5/26/16 blog posts. This one is similar, but different. In this one, each layer is drawn on one at a time to avoid confusion. Also, every negative space is painted the new value for each layer.

You can also read about negative painting in Linda Kemp's books: Painting Outside the Lines and others. I understand that she has a tutorial of the tree project on you tube, but I have not seen it.

STEP ONE:
Begin by creating a foundation. Some might consider it a background or underpainting.
Paint wet into wet an underpainting using three or four colors. (You will use only these colors for the entire project.) Use some of the texture techniques we've talked about: salt/spray water or granulating medium/wax paper/saran wrap/bubble wrap/spackling/etc. You are not trying to make it dark, but a pretty light value. Dry completely.

Note: Linda Kemp wets both sides of the paper and puts it on plexiglas to keep it moist while painting this foundation. You remove it from the plexiglas when you are ready for it to dry.

STEP 2:
After drying, sketch out your first layer of simple shapes, in this case a few trees for the foreground.
Here is a pattern if you don't feel comfortable without one.


Using the same colors you used for the underpainting, paint the SPACES BETWEEN the tree and limbs. Those are the NEGATIVE spaces. This part should be about two values darker than the first underpainting. When finished, you should see a lot of the textures showing up in your first trees.

Step THREE: Draw some more trees and some ground higher up above the first layer of ground. (This helps strengthen the illusion of distance: Things below your eye level rise from the bottom in the distance; things above your eye level appear to get lower from the top in the distance.) Use paint another value or two darker than the first time. Again, paint ONLY the NEGATIVE spaces between branches and trees,  NOT THE TREES THEMSELVES.  If you are doing monochrome, just use less water in your paint. With each successive layer, you should also neutralize your paints, to reinforce the effect of distance.

In this pattern of the second layer, the dots represent your first layer of trees. Notice the overlapping of the limbs.

This picture shows the original underpainting(using bubble wrap and pencil shavings for texture),

the first layer of paint, and the beginning of the second layer on the right side. The colors I used were quin coral, cerulean, hansa yellow.

Step 3: When the painting is dry, put in another layer of trees, making them smaller than the others, and making the branches wind behind the others. Again, using the same paints as before, use an even darker value to paint the last layer of paint.

Above is a finished tree project. (See how the ground rises with each successive layer)

Below is a picture of leaves using the same technique. These two are my paintings.

Below are examples of other artists' work using this particular method of negative painting.