Negative Painting

Leaves, 5 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches, watercolor

I bought Watercolor Painting Outside the Lines by Linda Kemp the other day. I’ve been obsessed with it ever since I got it. It’s only 125 pages but it’s chock full of information and exercises. She covers supplies, paint qualities, underpaintings, negative shapes of objects, how to paint negative shapes, and composition and planning. Even if I decided that I didn’t want to do any more negative painting, I would still get a lot out of this book. The underpainting section seemed a little early and misplaced to me, but she admits at the beginning of the section that she debated where to put it. There’s probably not a perfect place to put it.

If you do get Linda Kemp’s book, be sure to check out her free video lessons at Jerry’s Artarama. There are eight video lessons that coordinate with her book. There’s also a DVD of the book which I haven’t seen. The painting above is one of the exercises from the book. Doing the exercises has been worth it for me. It’s more difficult than it looks. Below is another little exercise from the book, creating landscapes with layers of watercolor washes.

Landscape, 5 x 5 1/2 inches, watercolor.

I’m about halfway through the book right now, so I’ll let you know my progress as I go along.