Fall Leaves

Acrylic on ampersand 8 by 10 75.00

This monocromatic painting is done in a deductive or (negative painting) manner. This is where you paint the entire board with the colors you wish, in this case the mid value, then pull out the lights while also adding the dark. Sometimes you’ll put in some darks and pull out the item either to mid value or to light value. This painting was completed as an exercise we did at Wild Acres. Our instructor was Phil Garett ( SC “Golden” Rep) . We were using the long awaited for… “OPEN” acrylics. Since this technique takes some time to finish, its the perfect opportunity to try these slow drying paints.

You might like to try this little exercise… You don’t have to do anything to the ampersand board it comes ready to go. We went outside and picked up items like flowers or seed pods and used it as a bit of inspiration. I chose leaves because I love fall leaves and always try to paint some each year.

“Negative” painting just means you paint around the object your trying to depict rather than painting the object directly. Usually by using value and color counterpoint to create the illusion of the object. It’s frequenly a technique one does in watercolor and it can be very challenging for some folks because they have to think in terms of whats needed in the background to form the Foreground ampersand a lot but this was also a chance for those folks who don’t paint on this medium to give it a try. If I could afford it, I paint many of my paintings on the stuff. Its fast easy and consistent. It comes in all sizes and can be framed very much likie an oil painting. Of course you can frame it under glass if you wish and they look great either way.