Transparent and Opaque: Monochrome Studies

In this exercise the aim was to build a picture of an object (the suggested subject was a winter tree) in two different ways. First by painting dark positive shapes on a light background and subsequently by painting light coloured negative shapes onto a dark background. 

The suggested subject was ideal as we are in the right season for bare trees so I started by going out for a walk and drawing some rapid sketches in my A6 sketchbook using an ink brush pen and some watercolour.
 

 

I then went on to make some watercolour sketches of trees in our and the neighbour's garden. And also some closer studies in ink and fine liner of sections of branches and the shapes made by the twigs between them - these started to tend more towards abstraction.

 

I made larger versions of these using white gouache to paint negative spaces on black paper and using India ink to make the branch shapes in white paper.

 

I then completed the exercise as directed in the course notes. I used acrylic paints for this exercise. First I pre - drew a tree shape in charcoal over a dry pale grey wash. I then painted the tree shape in an opaque dark grey. I repeated the same image again but this time painting freehand rather than pre-drawing over the pale wash. This produced a slightly more fluid and less angular shapes. I modulated the grey from very dark opaque at the trunk to gradually lighter grey towards the narrower twigs.  

 

After the pale background I turned my attention to the dark ground. I lightly sketched the shape of the tree using a white charcoal pencil and used  a very light toned grey opaque paint to paint in the negative shapes between the branches.  I made a couple of other studies in the same way using washes and opaque mixes of violet.

 

I found that the opaque dark paint easily covered the paler wash when painting the positive shapes of the trees giving a crisp and distinct image. The light coloured opaque paint despite being fairly thick consistency didn't cover the dark background so easily . The result was some irregularity in tone in the negative shapes painted. However - this method really did draw attention to the negative shapes - it reminded me a bit of making a stained glass window with the leading in between left unpainted. This technique could be used for example to emphasise that a silhouetted tree is backlit against a light sky. Although the coverage was quite uneven, I found the result quite aesthetically pleasing and to me the paintings made by painting the negative spaces seemed more lively than those made by painting  the dark shapes of the trunk and branches.