Negative painting watercolor trees

A negative painting is a technique where you paint the background around a positive image first. As a result, the background has darker colors, thus increasing the depth of the image. It is considered a negative painting as you work with negative space. This article will discuss what negative watercolor paintings are and some of our favorite tips for making them look amazing.

Negative space painting is a fascinating technique, which can result in artwork that has fantastic depth, dimension and interest. The process can feel a little counter-intuitive at first, but once you get the idea, it can be an enjoyable painting experience, and feels a bit like building a painting back into space. As part of our watercolor journey, I wanted to introduce this process to my adults. A leaf theme seemed fitting for the fall season, and the leaf motif was simple enough to tackle…

Paintings in this collection are available for purchase as giclee prints on archival Hahnemuhle Museum Etching paper. Contact me for more information at jeanmackayart (at) gmail (dot) com.

In this project, we'll be painting the negative shapes, instead of the trees themselves. With each step, you'll see the trees emerge, further and further back in space. This is a great way to get a feeling of depth in your landscapes. To download a PDF of this tutorial, for $6, click here. __________________________________________ The first step is to choose three colors (a triad). I chose quinacridone gold, quinacridone rose, and cobalt turquoise, but you could use any yellow, red, and…

Negative painting is a technique where you paint around the subject rather than on the subject. It's a technique that can add depth and dimension to your paintings. Negative painting challenges us to shift our perspective and concentrate on the surrounding negative space rather than the subject itse

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This is a follow up of the negative painting post where I am helping you to SEE things negatively and positively. In the following step by step, I have concentrated less on the colour mixes etc. and more on the ways of seeing the subject. So the best way to use this is to scroll up and down and compare the different stages including my reference photo and see the differences and how the stages have been achieved. I'm concentrating on the leaves here...as this is where the negative painting…