Zebras and Gesso

SUBTRACTIVE PAINTING

Subtractive painting methods allow you to put color on your paper, even randomly, then remove the areas you want to be lighter or white. It's like sculpting, in a way. A sculptor just removes the parts he doesn't want. 

Start by covering your entire paper with ordinary white gesso.

Why gesso? Gesso has a slippery feel with watercolor, but not quite as slick as yupo. You will be able to remove the paint easily back to white. But you can still darken the paint. You won't be able to do a lot of glazing, because it will move the first layer easily. But you can glaze much more than with yupo's surface. Plus, you can create interesting textures that the paint will pick up.

With gesso you are not limited to watercolor paper. You can put gesso on wood, mat board, poorer quality watercolor paper, etc. 

You can smooth the gesso, put swirls and other marks in it for texture, add things like sand, impress leaves or stamps, whatever you wish to create textures. On one of mine, I put crinkled saran wrap over the top of wet gesso (just as we do with creating watercolor textures), then removed the saran wrap while the gesso is wet.

Dry the gesso completely. Maybe for a day, especially in this humid August weather.

The next step is to cover the entire page with washes of paint. You can choose what you like, but I tried to paint cool to warm, starting with blue on the left, adding magenta in the middle, then quinacridone gold on the right. (In this picture it's on its side).  Then I turn on its side and spray to make the paints mix together.

You can go as dark as you wish in this step. 

Draw your picture over the dried paint.

Using a lifting brush (stiff brush), remove the paint from the white areas. This should not be very difficult, as the gesso usually releases the paint easily. You will see little "ghost" colors where it doesn't lift completely, but these just add interest to the painting.

You may be happy with how dark your stripes are, but I was not. So I made adjustments. I wanted my stripes to go from blue to violet to red to orange to gold, So I strengthened them with colors, using the same colors I used in the original pour. I also painted the nose with Ultramarine blue and some violet. It picked up the yellow beneath it in places, making a more interesting color. I painted the eye in dark.

Here is the finished painting. 

Painting this was just pure fun for me, but I hoped to teach a few points at the same time.

1. Painting on a different surface to provide texture

2. "subtractive" painting.....removing paint to bring out the darker values

3. Using 3-4 colors to create harmony

4. Blending color on the paper for transitions in color. 

5. What it means to "lift" color

Below is a different painting done using CLEAR gesso. Clear gesso has a sandier texture, such as what you see in the gold background. It is much different than the white gesso, and doesn't remove paint well.

STUDENT WORK

It's always fun to see how each person takes the same concept and does something unique.

Most of these are not completely finished, but you get a feeling for the different directions each one takes.

Jackie had a darker base wash. The red was quite staining and hard to remove completely. She chose to do the stripes in various blues, which helped unify it all.

Tracy, below, did a diagonal wash of light blue violet to magenta. After removing the whites, she worked left to right with cool to warm, ending in a dark blue for the nose and eye.

Barb's wash had some neutral greens and blues for background. She sandwiched warm colored stripes in the middle with cool darks on far left and right.

Kerri Had a very warm, golden background, and used deep browns for the darks, and some reds and golds for interest. 

Sylvia has a more muted background, and the dark blue and blue green stripes bring it all out. She's added some gold stripes on the left to balance out the gold background on the right.

Betty had a green/yellow/gold background to start. She concentrated on making each stripe

vary in color, making for a very colorful, textured look.

Cathy's zebra started with a very pale wash. She did some undertones with metallic paints.

Then she varied the color of each stripe, letting one color bleed into the next. 

Dorothy's pale background allowed her stripes to go noticeably from cool to warm and back to cool in the mouth area. 

I am missing a picture, and I know I photographed it. It was a good example of how you can create a background you don't like and change it. So Sorry! Don't know what happened.