AMA: Negative Shape Painting Envelope

If you enjoy throwing paint around, this swap is for you. This is beginner friendly.

On a store-bought envelope, add 2-3 colors of paint. (At least 4X6, I like to use the yellow envies you find at dollar stores that are 5.5x9.)

You can use a gelli plate or even add your paint and cover with plastic wrap and let it dry overnight.

The point is to randomly place your paint on the envie (drop, drip, spritz) and let the colors blend, run into each other creating a completely random paint covered envelope.

Bright colors are best but even lighter colors will work. (At least 75% of the envie should be covered with paint, some white/yellow showing is ok.)

You can use inks, acrylic, gouache, even watercolor.

After your enive is dry, add any of the following to your envie in black, waterproof marker:

hearts, circles, mushrooms, raindrops, or a mix of them

Put them all over the envie, make them on the bigger side because you will be painting around them.

Next, choose an opaque colored paint. If you don’t have one, add white to any color and it will make it more opaque.

Now, paint around the shapes you just drew. Yes, you will be painting over the painted envelope. This will make your shapes stand out.

This will be messy and doesn’t need to be perfect. It is supposed to be fun and stress free.

The last thing you need to do is go back over your shapes with your black marker to touch up your edges. You probably got some paint on the outlines and that is ok. Now you can fix it.

When you are done, you will have an envelope covered with colorful shapes.

There are videos on YouTube about negative painting. I just don’t know how to add a link. If you have questions let me know and I will do my best to explain.

Add your user name, swap name, and date to an included note.

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