Wildflower - A painting a day & instruction too

This small painting is a reverse painting which means you use a fixative (mastic, tape, wax or film) is painted or placed in the areas you wish to remain white. Then you paint with total abandon the background. Wait for the painting to dry, take off the fixative/tape and now you can paint the foreground. This isn’t my favorite way to work but I do it sometimes to keep up my skills. I actually don’t like using fixative. It leaves a very hard line around everything you paint. Which is far from my style. To learn the technique is valuable and I recommend it to students. The problem with using mastic is you have to use it often because it goes bad quickly (say in six months) in the bottle and like drawing if you don’t use it often your skill for application will suffer. Those artists who use it regularly find they have no problem with it. It allows you to paint around small or tiny shapes without having to painstakingly maneuver wet paint around objects. It is good for highlights and of course you can scubb back the hard edge if you want it a little softer. I painted this in my sketch book Its 6 by 9 inches on 140 lb paper.

If you want to try it, I suggest the tiny(fingernail polish) bottle size at”cheap joe’s” He sells it for a couple of dollars. It can be fun and you can do lots of interesting things with it. Three things: always use a cheap brush, keep it wet with a little dish soap and water before you place it into the bottle. Always paint it on bone dry paper and don’t leave it on your paper for very long, a week or two is OK.

You can also use drafting tape but you have to use an exacto knife or tear the edges of the tape to get the tape to lay on your shape correctly. I like tape for perfectly stright edges, but haven’t really used it for organic shapes. I’ve used film and its good for trees and leaves. I think you should try them all.