Watercolor Painting Outside the Lines: A Positive Approach to Negative Painting

Rating:
Summary: Painting negative space does positive things for your art
Review: Linda Kemp's work is luminous and seems to float off the pages. She recommends EVERYONE to use the technique of painting negative space to improve their art. Negative painting is going AROUND the outline of a subject, the way you might lay down a leaf on a white sheet of paper. Then dab paint around it. Lift off that leaf and you have a white leaf floating on a colored ground.

The book has the following chapters:

Basic Painting Supplies

Underpaintings - laying the groundwork

Getting into Shapes - become aware of negative shapes!

Working with Glazes and Building Layers

Building Nature's Complex Shapes

Picture Planning Made Easy

Assembling the Pieces of the Puzzle

The author says this technique applies to all media (certainly those who do charcoal or pastel are well aware of the importance of negative space, as are sculptors.) As a watercolorist, if you concentrate on line and wash, this will be quite revealing. In fact, this is probably a "must-have" on the technique bookshelf.