Painting the Negative

White Plum Tree

White Plum Tree is a painting I did based on "Flowering Plum Tree" (left) by Van Gogh, which was in turn after Hiroshige. Little bit of art re-cycling there!

I've used it as inspiration for an exercise in the "Celebrate Your Creative Self" book by Mary Todd Beam. It is called painting around the white. You paint in the negative background shapes leaving the the subject of the painting white. I also flipped this plum tree one round just because it looked more interesting that way once it was finished.

Here is another painting I did using the same negative painting style.