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After a planned value sketch, I drew up the liy and did a wet-on-wet wash using mainly bright yellow-greens, pinks and blues,

After the paper was dry, I proceded to negative paint our the lily shape, carving ir off the wet-on-wet background. There is also negative painting/wet-blending creating the shadows within the flower.  I used mainly pthalo blue, pthalo green, green gold, quinacridone violet – all clear dye colors.

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Wetting small areas I continues going darker in the background but switched to the sedimentary ultramarine blue, cerulean blue, cobalt green + the vibrant quinacridones (see 12/11 Technique Corner for pigment list),  We definitely have colorful darks but the bright light colors in the background are distracting from the soft lily.

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How do you tone down the background without going heavy or turning the background to mud?

Put the painting into the tub or basin of water.  After about 3 minutes take it out and let it sit on your board -flat or at a slight angle – for several minutes. Now “float” on more ultramarine blue, cerlean blue or other sedimentary paints. Quinacridones and green gold, perinone orange are fine too.

Float? Stroke gently into the wet paper with a puddle of color you have made up on your palette. Blot your  damp brush before loading it with the color. Fill it from your puddle and one-stroke an area. Don’t brush back and forth. Leave it alone buy watch that no color leaks into unwanted areas. If it does, pick it up with a clean blotted brush or damp tissue. No paper towels.

Next time Loosening up II but you needed this lesson first.

And, yes, I typed this all with one finger( see my last post about taking a break).

Happy painting!

Caroline

© 2014 Caroline Buchanan.