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Thursday 13 February 2014

Creative Negativity

Is negativity ever a good thing? Well, actually, yes, it is. In art it is, anyway.

I have been practicing a style of painting that I learned of some years ago in an art class at the Neilson Park Creative Center here in Toronto. It was taught by an Artist named Linda Kemp. She now has several books and videos out on the subject of "Negative Painting".

Negative painting is painting in the negative which means we paint around the subject instead of painting the subject. It is quite difficult to get your head around when you first begin and takes a lot of practice. I've used the technique in a few of my paintings but decided to really do some more practice with it so I purchased Linda's videos and have been watching them and then attempting to master it. I really like the effect of this technique.



The two little paintings above were inspired by some photos I took of the ice storm we experienced in Toronto in December. As you can see, I didn't paint the trees and branches, I painted around them to suggest they are there. As I mentioned earlier, you have to think about the spaces between the branches instead of the branches. It's quite a challenge.


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