Negative painting is when you paint around an object. You can do this in any painting media, and it is really a good way to preserve the white paper for watercolors. As watercolor is transparent, painting over other colors influences the final result – for better or worse!
Today I decided to practice negative painting. Flowers are always a great subject (for anything!) – and a challenge, too.
I decided to start with an umbelliform flower – generic, no specific plant. If you know anything about flowers, think in terms of Queen Anne’s Lace or Cow Parsnip or Fennel. The flowers spread out over long stems branching off in a cone shape from a main stem. The shape is something like that of an umbrella, but the individual plant can be flat, convex, or concave. I chose a convex shape.
The first thing I did was pencil in the flower and stems. From there, a light wash of cobalt teal, diluted, to paint around the flower’s shapes. This took a bit of doing,and a bit of patience – to paint, and to let dry.
And, as you can see, the next step was to paint the flowers. The sun is above the shapes, so I tried to make the upper parts of the flower brighter than those bits directly beneath, and then with a spot of lighter ones further down the stem. By allowing the background to dry around the white areas my flowers were painted, in general, on a clean bit of paper. The colors are more clear. Yes, I did go in here and there later to paint onto the flowers again, and on the background, in an attempt to make sure I didn’t have any overwhelming pattern repeats and to help or improve areas I thought were not quite to my liking.
My next attempt is Spanish Broom. If you know what broom looks like, that is great – you know there are a lot of bright yellow flowers and buds which all clump beautifully together on a bush with dark green foliage. I did this background with the same goal as the umbelliform painting – keep white paper for more clear colors.
I took this painting a lot further than my umbelliform when it came to negative painting! I did 4 to 5 negative painting layers to get the sense of busy-ness of a Spanish Broom plant. I first added cadmium yellow, painting into the white paper and leaving some uncovered. From there, a bit of quinacridone gold or yellow ochre to add dimension to the flowers. Once these colors were dried, I went in with a slightly darker and more yellow green to depict leaves, and from there consecutive layers of darker and darker greens. In the end I diluted some white gouache into a greenish yellow mess on the palette to paint into the leafy areas.
As with the previous two flower paintings, I did a quick, simple outline in pencil. However, instead of painting the entire background and in between plants, I used the big green leaves of the Greater Celadine plant as a frame for its bright yellow flower, and greenish-yellow and dark green buds. Again, leaving white paper was important for the freshness of color.
The next step was to paint the yellow flower itself overall – no shadows or gradations until later. The yellowish-green buds were painted more wet-in-wet for blurring. I also painted some layers of darker greens and warmer greens on the leaves, and a mix of cadmium yellow and ochre for the shadows and stamens (pistils? – can never remember!) within the flower itself. The final touches were the fine hairs on leaves, stem, and buds. I used pure white for painting them on the colors, but added some lavendery green with the white gouache to paint onto the white paper in the background.
These exercises were time intensive, but in the end the focus and willingness to be patient paid off. I like each one for different reasons and I used each to try different ways of painting flowers. All of these are in my big sketchbook, and I am beginning to realize with each painting experience how much both a sketchbook and painting daily as much as possible are paying off. This along with losing a fear of failure a “formal” painting can bring are allowing me to explore and experiment in ways I never foresaw.
Ink, Yarn & Beer 