What is Negative Watercolor Painting?

Find out what watercolor in negative is and how to use it to create light and depth in your illustrations

Unlike other painting techniques, with watercolor, you can’t use white paint to add light and depth to your illustrations like you can with oil or acrylics. Instead, you must learn how to manage the white of the page on which you are painting to your advantage.

One of the most effective ways to do this is by painting watercolor in negative: leave principal elements of your illustration unpainted so that they jump out at you.

Instinctively, the most important elements of our paintings seem like the parts that we should be painting most. Painting in negative turns that idea on its head requiring you to paint everything but the object you want to highlight.

Examine the picture below:

On the left, you can see how a leaf would typically be painted. On the right, the leaf is unfilled but the image is still legible.

The highlighted elements do not need to be entirely colourless either: the practice simply requires you to be more disciplined with what you choose to paint, considering the parts you leave unpainted first, rather than deciding what to do with them as an afterthought.

It might seem like a confusing approach at first, but artist and botanical illustrator Cristina Cilloniz (@cristina_cilloniz) shares this simple and satisfying technique to get you started with negative watercolor painting.

Layers

Watercolor in negative is a great way to create depth in your creations. The best way to do that is to establish the layers of your piece: decide what elements will occupy the foreground and require most light and what will fade into the background.

Defining just three layers of depth will give your piece a sense of perspective, as Cristina conveys elegantly with this leafy illustration.

Numbering

After drawing the basic outlines of the leaves, she marks each leaf with a 1, 2, or 3. The leaves marked with 1 are closest to the foreground, 2 the layer beneath, and 3 are the furthest away.

Paint around the object

Now, you can get the paint out but, remember, the white of the paper is your closest ally.

Start with a light shade, mixing a lot of water with a small amount of pigment, so not to smother the paper (you can always add more but taking pigment away is either complicated or impossible).

Apply the first layer of color around the outlines of the leaves marked 1.

Feel free to play with colors across the page until it is covered everywhere except your top layer leaves. You can also use bigger brushes to cover the less detailed areas and finer ones for the edges of the shapes.

Increase intensity

Once your first layer is complete, let it dry. Wait until no color comes off on your finger when you touch it. The dryer the better, as this will directly affect your next layer.

When dry, you can add the second layer, adding a little bit more pigment to create a more intense color. This time, avoid painting over any leaves marked with a 1 or 2.

Don’t go overboard with the color, you have at least one more layer to do after this.

Let it dry and then repeat, avoiding all leaves marked 1, 2, and 3.

As you can see, this technique allows you to create an elegant and unusual illustration in just a few easy steps.

If you would like to learn more about how to use the negative watercolor technique with natural elements, starting from the initial creative illustration process, to the creation of a mood board, a color palette, and useful exercises to train your hand and eye, check out Cristina’s course Negative Watercolor Painting for Botanical Illustration.

You may be interested in:

- Modern Watercolor Techniques, a course by Ana Victoria Calderon
- Watercolor Illustration with Japanese Influence, a course by Flor Kaneshiro
- Artistic Portrait with Watercolors, a course by Ale Casanova