chamomile – Ink, Yarn & Beer

Brain Training with Negative Painting

No, I don’t mean painting with negative themes or thoughts, but painting around things – but you already knew that!

The normal course of painting, for the major part anyway, is to paint the object you are focused on. Then you paint around it. Most often it works, but for light-colored objects, or flowers, sometimes you just need to paint around the white to keep it white. Paper also can affect negative painting by how well it absorbs water and pigment. 100% cotton watercolor paper is best for this, and its sizing also will affect its absorbency. Cellulose papers, even if heavy, react differently to layers and layers of watercolors and pigments.

Below is one of my first focused attempts on negative painting. Supposedly these are chamomile flowers, but the fact is they look a lot like any generic daisy. Painted on the cellulose paper, absorbency was an issue, as seen clearly on the flowers. Blending of color was rather forced. However, I could paint around the white of the flower and get crisp edges. The outside green was more difficult; I think if I used water between two green values to soften the edges, blending might have been more successeful.

From this paper I went to 100% cotton Kilimanjaro 140# CP paper, natural tone. Already a difference can be seen and, while painting, felt. Color is easily absorbed and blurs nicely. Layers of color, laid in while wet and dry, still creates a lovelier quality than above. It was far easier to paint the petals with shades of grey and with thin glazes than above since the paper’s response was more absorbent and less resistant to both water and color.

Finally, a painting of yellow lilies – lilies? you ask? Yeah, me, too. Anyway, yellow flowers. I painted the basic shapes of the flowers, then painted around them, and then added what was supposed to add character and depth to the flowers, and then back to the back ground, and then back to the flowers, and so on. As a flower painting it is nothing great, but it was good practice for negative painting. I worked at shapes more than anything – the shape the yellows create as well as the greens and darks outside and in between the flowers themselves. This, too, was on the Kilimanjaro paper, and it shows.

The cellulose paper fails when it comes to lots of washes, but for more direct painting it works pretty well. For lots of water and color, as with the two on the Kilimanjaro, the cotton paper is far better. The frustration level with the cellulose paper is certainly there as I had to pick up drops of water and spend a lot of time with the hair dryer so I could move on to the next wash or glaze. With the Kilimanjaro, only when I wanted a totally dry sheet to paint upon, to add glazes or more paint or another layer of clean water, did I need to use the hair dryer.

So, more painting and focus. Not great, but it is in the doing and the play the learning is done.

99. Carnations & Chamomile

The other day at the store I picked up small, individual bouquets of chamomile and red carnations (probably really dianthus, a member of the same flower group). The leaves of each are vastly different, with the chamomile more “leafy” and the carnation’s longer and pointy. I took my time with this painting this morning – took a photograph of the flowers – and studied things a bit before diving in. I didn’t do a value study, but tried to determine value from the photo.

I began with an overall wash for most of the areas with color – greens, reds, and yellow dots. From there, negative painting and deepening colors in an attempt to show depth. Not quite there – a bit too tight for my tastes – but I do feel it was a moderately successful study. Waiting between the washes was a bit trying on my patience!

Sunday Morning

This morning I had one goal in mind: paint. With a gloomy sky here on the California coast, the damp and cold penetrate you to the bone. Once it leaves, it’s a great big sunny day ahead! So, while waiting for the fog to dissipate, I took a few pictures of a bouquet I put together of chamomile flowers and small, red carnations in a rectangular glass base. I didn’t do a value study because I wanted to look at the colors – light, dark, and so on – to see what I could produce.

I penciled in the basic drawing, took some notes of the colors and mixed this and that, testing them on a scrap of paper. Looking at the vase, I saw the different shades of color through the glass with water and without water, as well as the water line and edges of the vase. Chamomile leaves are multi-lobed and floppy; carnation leaves are rather spiky. Chamomile flowers are happy, daisy-like flowers, and quite small. Carnations are upright. Both are really lovely!

Process was like my last two flower paintings – start with the large areas of color and move into details. Overall, it worked here, until I started getting into the hodge-podge of leaves. I think I should have simplified their masses of color, but I didn’t. I like the negative painting I accomplished for the chamomile flowers, as well as the edges along the bouquet where the white flowers have to merge into something. The carnations were far more difficult than I thought, and once more, I made something more complicated and tight than I would like to see as “my” style.

Nonetheless, I feel that this painting is a moderate success. I was patient and let the washes dry, working from lighter to more dark, thinking about white space and negative painting. And I still have a bouquet of flowers to enjoy!