Sunday, March 18, 2012

A Positive Day of Teaching Negative Painting

SUNFLOWER SONATA
Watercolor 15x22

Yesterday, I had a wonderful time teahcing a workshop for the Greater Castle Rock Art Guild. Castle Rock is a growing town, located north of Colorado Springs right before you get to Denver. There is a quaint downtown area and a strong group of artists that are involved with all sorts of great programs.
We spent the day focusing on the importance of Negative Painting in watercolor and in the afternoon applied the concept to sunflowers. We began by wetting the paper and applying background colors. Plastic wrap and salt can be used to add more texture.
When the paper dried we started to paint the areas around the flowers - or the negative space - to pull the shapes of the petals and leaves forward. Sometimes negative painting is referred to as 'shadow painting' which sounds a little more positive!

I will be teaching another workshop for GCRAG in April - you can see the details at my website.