Negative Painting Practice

I am doing some more experimentation with negative painting. Here is what I have done so far.

First, an abstract landscape. I started with a wash of yellow, with some streaks of red. Then I layered in the washes for the tree canopies and the grass/trunks. I followed up with some more definition with a darker mix below the trees, washes of burnt sienna to give the tree trunks some texture, and some more color in the tree canopies.

Watercolor on 9 X 12 inch 140 lb. cold press paper

 The next painting is an abstract of leaves floating in a pond. I started with yellow and orange washes and dabbed in red and blue into the wet washes. I followed up with layers of color to outline the leaves, splashes of water to lift some of the paint, then more layers of darker colors to outline the "leaves" and other shapes that developed as I was mixing colors and splattering.

Watercolor on 9 X 12 inch 140 lb. cold press paper

Finally, an acrylic painting. This is an abstract of tree branches in spring, also done using a negative painting technique. My inspiration was a red maple tree, hence the red and yellow flower clusters that appear before the leaves in early spring.

Acrylic on 16 X 12 inch canvas