Monday, February 23, 2009

We're still working on negative painting. This time our watercolor teacher loaned us some of her pictures of waterlilies and lotus plants. First I sketched a few to figure out the shapes, then I got an idea for composition.  To prep my paper (12x16) , I wet the whole thing then added medium yellow, aliziran crimson and thalo blue , leaving white spaces where my main flowers and leaves would be.  After it dried, I sketched in two main flowers and three main leaves.  It's hard to make the lily pads look flat, yet show some dimension.  I painted around all of the main shapes with a slightly darker value of the background colors, then waited for it to dry again. Repeat the process until I had as many lily pads as I wanted.    After that I did a little positive painting to accent the colors and then drew in veins using a broken twig instead of a small brush.  

I ended up going in with another darker wash of thalo green and turquoise to try to get the pond darker. 
I think I'll try this again, but with yellow flowers and a green pond this time.  Maybe a bee or butterfly? fish? 

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