Subtractive Art

I have been pondering subtractive art lately.

I have been fortunate to have been in several art demos from Golden, because they have been invited in by some local stores and art guilds I'm a part of.

Their instructors are AMAZING. Real, life-long artists and product experts, and the demonstrations, while free, are incredibly detailed lessons in both chemistry and technique.

At the most recent demonstration, we got to paint little paintings using a variety of techniques - this is really the way that I remember how to do things, so it's my favorite sort of demonstration.

One of the techniques we learned was subtractive painting. We painted a base color, then another color on top of it, and then removed the top layer in a shape - we did a pear - to reveal the color below.

Simple, but awesome.

I started to get obsessed with subtracting things.

Subtracting is as good as adding you know.

You can subtract bad things. Things that waste your time. Stupid things. Things you don't need. Unpleasant things. It's all good.

Aside from removing acrylic paint and stupid, boring, bad things though, you can also remove stuff from your art with items from your pantry!

One thing that is a fun subtractive technique, is salted watercolor. You put down some watercolor, sprinkle salt, and let it steal some of your color. Here's a sample from a watercolor class I took. The texture in the water is from salt.

But you know what else steals water?

Rice.

Alton Brown would love this tutorial. Walter White probably would too :)

I decided to use this technique for today's Mix-Ability challenge. Here's the technique.

First, tape a piece of watercolor paper down onto a board. Your paper will warp a lot if you don't.

Next - add OODLES of water and pigment. You can use watercolor - I used Lukas Aquarelle - or sprays, or anything water-based with a lot of pigment. Paint it on thick and goopy and wet.

Sprinkle rice on it. Then walk away. This technique requires patience. Watch a cooking show. Do laundry.

When it's dry, and not a moment before, brush rice off into a container - it can be reused!

Enjoy the results!

I loved watching this develop - so fun. Sort of like a stampy Polaroid.

I decided to use mine with Kinda Eclectic, since I used fall colors.

So what do you think? Feel like subtracting something?

Come play along :).

Loveyameanitbye.