How to Organize Your Process: First or Last with Debbie Miller
How do you decide the order in which you paint things?
For Debbie Miller (Ep.15) the answer is simple. Paint your backgrounds last. Here’s why.
The reason is because it gives the artist two chances to create interesting shapes in her objects.
Her first chance is when she’s painting the actual object. For example, a flower. She lays in the color and lays attention to shapes. She wants the shapes to be as good as possible.
But then at the end when she’s laying in her background, she has a second chance to improve the flower. She cuts in through negative painting to make sure that her shapes can be as interesting as possible.
Put it to Practice:
Negative space painting is a great tool for shaping your objects. If you finish something like a lemon or a flower and you don’t like the shape you have, use negative painting to try reshaping it.
You’ll use the color of your background or whatever color is behind the object and paint over the edges of the object itself.
You can use negative painting at every layer of your work or you can use it right at the end like Miller.