May 25, 2011

Positively: Ready for the Picking

Stage 1: After the Pour
Negativity Rules!! Yes, working on this picture has been an eye opener for me. I have really been horning my negativity skills. As you know from my previous posts I took the watercolor pouring workshop with Leslie Redhead and these grapes were one of our projects. We did this as a practice before we took on our ‘major picture’ of poppies. (No, you haven’t missed that picture as it isn’t finished yet!)
Stage 2: Starting Negative Painting. Course is over and I am on my own!!
Stage 1 picture shows what it looks like after the pouring and then in stage two I started to define leaves and grapes by stressing the negative rather than the positive aspects of each leaf and grape. At first I really didn’t know where or how to develop things but as I worked I began to understand how it worked. I thought I could move around the picture and you can see isolated grapes as well as clusters in the stage two piece. I quickly learned that you must ‘move out ‘from the defined area so you can build and connect things. Fortunately they are non-staining transparent colors as I was doing lots of scrubbing out and redefining those isolates. I also made the mistake of not taking my colours to the edges of the paper. I took a deep breath, said good bye to my hard work and repoured the bottom half of the picture; I think it turned out great!! Then with a little creative cropping to fit it into a frame, I was suddenly done.

Ready for Picking - 7.5 x 10.5 - Available

(I did it!!!)

6 comments:

Unknown said...

YES you did it Wendy and very well too.

Amazing. Truly beautiful work. Love it. I can't wait to see the poppies.

Brenda Hill CDM said...

You should try this one in a Federation show

Carol Blackburn said...

Wow, this is wonderful Wendy. I will have to try this method and see what I can do with it. Your painting is really great.

Wendy Mould AFCA said...

Thanks Dors, Brenda and Carol. I really enjoyed working on the graphes and now I have started my own project with hibus flowers. It is very much a challenge.

Donna MacDonald AFCA said...

I love this! The effect is stunning!

Anonymous said...

Thank you Donna, I have finished another piece with this style and I am quite excited about it. See my June Blog, Explosive Colour. Sorry I am having trouble with blogspot and I have to post as Anonymous.