Painted Michael Jackson Turned Digital Art

Sometimes I like to paint...and sometimes I like to turn my paintings into digital art. That's how I was feeling today as I was going through some photos of my artwork. This one is classic Michael Jackson.

Painted MJ Turned Digital Art

Smooth Criminal is one of my all time favorite MJ songs. MJ has appeared in several artworks I've created over the years. It's fun to revisit past works and see what I can do to make them new and unique. I really love how this one turned out. 

MJ Forever!

Green Leaves Negative Painting

Here is another negative painting I finished last weekend in watercolors. This was actually the first one I did. I wanted to keep it very simple and mostly monochromatic.


Green Leaves Negative Painting

This one has mostly green watercolors, but a bit of yellow too. You could do this type of negative painting with almost any shape, but simple shapes like this are a great place to start if you've not done negative painting before. Next time, I think I'll do something a little more detailed, but I do like how this one turned out.


Moody Blue Trees Negative Painting

 I've been trying to get back into a watercolor groove since I'm returning to teaching High School Art this year and I'll be doing watercolors in my painting classes. I found some great watercolor artists on Instagram to follow, and several of them do this technique called Negative Painting. I'd never tried it before so I thought I'd give it a whirl. 


Moody Blue Trees Negative Painting

These are my Moody Blue Trees I did last weekend. I really like this technique. You paint the lightest values first, and then add subsequent layers getting darker each time. For a landscape scene like this, it would actually be lighter in the distance. But sometimes in art you just have to break the rules. I enjoyed painting in a new way. I hope my students will enjoy it too. I think it will be a good way for them to understand negative space and value--and painting a monochromatic scene. I think I'll be using this technique in the future too.