Negative painting

I always think "negative painting" is such a misleading term, because there's nothing negative about painting! For the uninitiated, it just means that you paint light foreground and then fill in dark background behind it, usually in layers (though in this case not), so that the light and white things are highlighted by the dark.

This didn't start out as a negative painting, but capturing flowers that are as white as gardenias are is a challenge, and as I went along, I realized that it was the green leaves and the rose bowl behind the flowers that would show up their details. When I finished, I pondered it for a few minutes, and decided to go with my humble and rather inept version of a Sarah Yeoman bouquet in which the dark background makes the flowers pop. I probably should have gone and looked at hers again before trying it—hers are amazing wet blended drippy blocks of color, while mine was definitely on the dry and scrubby side. Still, I'm working on sketchbook paper in a limited space, and it's the first time I tried this (at least without line of any kind), so I won't judge it too harshly. But I would like to try this one again, on good paper, and see what I could do.

#30x30DirectWatercolor2018