I have finished the first painting from my challenge to the North Syracuse Art Guild last week.
In my demo, I painted an abstract watercolor background over a piece of crumpled tissue paper, which was placed over a sheet of wet watercolor paper. As the paint seeps through the tissue paper, interesting lines, crinkles and abstractions form. The challenge was to find a way to create a painting using the shapes that emerged from the abstraction.
I had used lots of warm colors and as soon as my tissue paper and watercolor paper were dry, I was able to pick out falling leaf shapes. And since it is Fall (although it's going to 92 degrees today), I guess I was somewhat influenced by the season, so leaves emerged from the abstraction.
The first photo is the abstract background. The second photo is the painting nearly done. Since this painting lacks a traditional focal point and resembles surface pattern more than a foreground, middleground , background type of composition, I needed to do something to draw the eye to a specific area.
So I used the rusty red color to create a path for the eye to follow. In the third picture the rusty red is darker and causes some of the major leave shapes to come forward, while creating a darker space for other leaves to recede into. I also added more leaves to enhance the pattern of falling leaves.
Just love this piece Joan! I have to try this technique. It will cool down right quick I believe. I will miss the lake terribly!
ReplyDeleteI have used this techniques for several different effects, usually to make an interesting textured background. But I really like beginning the piece with no specific idea in mind and then letting whatever random shapes that form from the technique guide the end results.
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