A Negative Shape Painting-revisited.

One of my favorite artists is Mirna Sisul. She does colorful backgrounds using collage and acrylic paints in a rainbow of colors, line, drips, spatters and makes a wonderful mess on her canvas or board. She then creates her focus by painting out anything that is not her subject.

This is known as negative shape painting and it is so much fun to do. I've done this before for my son's engagement back in 2015, but hadn't really followed up on it with anthing. So, I  was fooling around with this technique the other day and created this!

It's a 12 inch by 12 inch canvas and I used a cool color palatte of blue, green, purple and metallic gold for drips. By adding color through stencils, I created some texture through out the piece. The final black outlines were done following the white gesso application to bump up the contrast. 

This really fun to do. Try it!

A Staci Swider Lesson

I had some fun today!

This is a base painting on 12 x 12 inch cardboard that I prepared using gesso on both sides. 

Following the DVD Lesson by Staci Swider, I added blocks of color using some Liquitex Basics paint and then dripped diluted red acrylic paint on two sides. Gravity did the work for me.

Unfortunately, I got so involved in the next step, I forgot to take a photo. But, I can explain it!

 Being in a relaxed state of mind, you gaze at the surface and imagine what is hiding there. I looked for awhile and found some simple flower shapes and used an oil pastel in a teal blue color to isolate them from the busy background. I knew what I wanted to find: flowers, so I could easily see them. 

I'm sure if I wanted to find houses, or faces, or a city block, I would have seen them too. It's just

a matter of being clear in your intent.

The next step is to get some rather opaque paint on your flat brush and paint around your outlined objects. This is a whole lot of fun to do. Any color is fine, but I love the contrast you get with these primary colors against the white.

Following that, you just get a few oil pastels in coordinating colors and highlight as you wish inside and around your objects. These plants are rooted in soil and are living near a pond, so I painted those spaces in accordingly.

What fun!

Staci Swider is the artist who created this video lesson at ArtistsNetwork.tv.  I watched and have tried to play with her techniques today. The video lesson is: Acrylic Painting Studio "Natural Compositions" with Staci Swider. Go here to see more stuff that is available  https://www.artistsnetwork.tv/catalog   There are a lot of artists to learn from here. Lots of techniques to try. An excuse to try something new and rattle your brain for a few hours.
  Go to https://www.artistsnetwork.tv/catalog/ and search for Staci Swider to see her videos. You might have as much fun with her ideas as I did today. Happy St. Patrick's Day!

30 by 30 - Floral #2

This is second floral I've made for the 30 Paintings in 30 days Challenge. At this rate I should have them completed by mid June...

First Floral for Leslie Saeta's 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge

OK, first painting done. A day late. sigh.

Flora Painting #1-30 day Challenge

First day of the challenge and I'm already behind. I was supposed to start yesterday, but my head was too fuzzy from the martini I had for New Year's Eve dinner. I'm not a good metabolizer.

The Concept or theme for this challenge, I've chosen:

" Is that a Flower in a Pot?" 

Colors chosen for today using the Bob Burridge Color Wheel: red yellow is the main color with purple, blue and green.   I intended to make blue the focal point, but got distracted by my handmade purple collage paper.

The use of several red-yellow and oranges made for a too-bright-for-my-eyes canvas.

I dulled down the oranges and did some negative shape painting with a watery white.

Collage with lots of gel medium and hand made painted and torn papers.

The flower just took on a life of its' own and didn't stay grungy at all. sigh.

Finished for today. I really wanted to make it more grungy and abstract, but that will have to wait for another session. I am finding my attempt to loosen up very difficult. 

I like this better when I take my glasses off...