Today I've been trying variations on negative painting. With this piece I've been shaping the negative spaces with the same attention I spend on the positive spaces:

©2015 Jennifer Georgeadis. 10cm x 10cm, digital pastel on pebble board

I've been giving my negative painting a good last look to see if there are any changes to be made. Meanwhile, it's always a good idea to brush up on my portrait sketching skills:

©2015 Jennifer Georgeadis. 13cm x 15cm, graphite on sketchbook paper

I'm giving the three-colour colour scheme another try, this time with primaries. With this painting, I'm working to keep each consecutive layer of pigment dynamic by working wet-into-wet:

©2015 Jennifer Georgeadis. 30cm x 22.5cm, watercolour on watercolour paper

In order to draw the eye to a few key areas, I've added several more layers of concentrated pigment to the painting. I decided to restrict myself to about five layers in order to keep the colours as pure as possible, and to retain some of the natural blending and blooming of paint that happened with the initial wash:

©2015 Jennifer Georgeadis. 30cm x 22.5cm, watercolour on watercolour paper

Aaaaaand I'm back to negative painting. I just couldn't stay away!
With this piece I've used a triadic colour palette and some watercolour pencils to create dynamic movement across the painting. I painted an initial diagonal wash of colour first, then began laying in more concentrated pigments to establish negative spaces. This time the placement of the pencil lines helped direct where I placed my shapes:

©2015 Jennifer Georgeadis. 30cm x 22.5cm, watercolour on watercolour paper

Although Friday's painting was fun to do, I got a little carried away with putting in all the lovely details I saw in my reference photo, and the painting got a bit too busy. I simplified things today with this butterfly painting:

©2015 Jennifer Georgeadis. 31.5cm x 25.5cm, digital ink

Today I continued working with cut shapes to paint this rooster in all his glory:

©2015 Jennifer Georgeadis. 27cm x 29cm, digital ink

I'm trying out illustrations using cut-out shapes and flat colour, which is not entirely unlike my negative painting process...

©2015 Jennifer Georgeadis. 31.5cm x 29cm, digital ink

I thought I'd take a little refresher day and draw/paint one of the places we visited in Vancouver. It was fantastic to be surrounded by lush greenery everywhere we went!

©2015 Jennifer Georgeadis. 23cm x 15.5cm, watercolour on Strathmore watercolour paper

The last few changes to my painting were subtle, but I thought necessary. The way I left it last, the colours had deepened, but lacked a few essential “holes” of very intense, dark pigment to create one or two more levels of depth. Now I'm ready to call it done!

©2015 Jennifer Georgeadis. 35cm x 22.5cm, watercolour on Arches paper