Dogwoods, Karlyn Holman style

 

DOGWOODS are flowering everywhere! Walking down to Sandy Maudlin's studio last week, I saw a sea of dogwood blossoms, just begging to be painted.

I wanted to try something different for the background, and decided to use a composition method explained by Karlyn Holman in her book Watercolor Fun and Free. This one is called 3 white corners. Here are some examples of her work. (Taken from Watercolor: the Spirit of Spontaneity.)

In the cherries above, she used 3 corners dark, and left the inside white.

The main idea is to leave three corners of the painting white, being sure to make the composition flow into these white areas, just not painting the background. 

FIRST PAINT THE MAIN FOREGROUND

Use a large enough piece of paper. You want to be able to have a free hand with textures and paint. Give yourself space to make changes later. 

For the branches, I used moonglow, burnt sienna, and a touch of magenta and leaf color.

Working 2 or 3 inches at a time, I painted on the moonglow on the bottom, added some burnt sienna in the top areas, then dropped in green where it connects to the leaves. If it was close to a flower, I dropped in some magenta. If it dried too light, I darkened the bottoms of the stems.  (If you don't have moonglow, use a gray made from ultramarine and burnt sienna)

Do do the flowers, dampen the petal first. Apply magenta where it will be darkest, at the tips of the flower. Add a warmer pink (I used coral) in some darker areas. Let the paint flow from tip to center. As the petal gets closer to the center, leave it white. If the paint flows into the white, pull it up with a thirsty brush. When it is nearly dry, you can add some of the fine lines that curve around the petal with a very fine brush. 

 

For the centers, make small yellow dots, then while wet, dot with ochre. When dry, add some greens.

For some shadows, use cobalt blue, very lightly, in shadowed areas. 

Your painting may be something like this. 

So next week we'll begin designing the three corners. 

1. You want each corner to be different in length and width, and the entire inside should connect.

2. In each white space, some of the design should peak through.

3. Try to design it so that it will emphasize your center of interest.

Then you will tape off the areas to remain white. After taping, you will either mask off the design that you've painted, or you will use contact paper to preserve the design. 

You will choose the texture you want for your background.Then you can use other methods to enhance it: stamping, lifting, collage, etc.

Here are two examples of small cards I painted using this method.I taped off the areas I wanted to stay white, and I used masking fluid over the flowers and stems. The texture is made using cheese cloth, since gauze isn't as easily available in the type I want.