This weekend, I reblogged two really interesting articles on the aesthetic or idea of employing lost edges, where the boundaries of given recognizable objects meld into the color space around it (side plane, background, etc).

I’d already haphazardly begun working with the idea, wondering if I was off-base to even be considering it, when I saw the 1st post, via artist Dianne Mize, in my email in-box. Short & succinct, she gives immediate clear credence to the whole notion.

This set me on a Google search, where I found Caroline Buchanan’s article, from 2014, loaded with visual examples and expanding on the whole idea.

If you visit these two artists’ posts, you should be able to see and access many years of articles, many of which I’ve bookmarked to return to (or took a sneak peek and also read 😊).

Below, is my first kinda-attempt at deciding if I could allow myself to lighten or fade (or lose) some of the edges around what I hope’ ll be a cluster of blooms closed together. I hadn’t even decided how I’d separate them beyond using value changes & hopefully adding pen & ink to the inside boundaries too.

The light blue markings are masking fluid, where there seemed to be the brightest highlights. I still don’t feel I’ve had much luck with the that, but I also haven’t given up yet, lol! I’ll have more on my masking fluid projects near the end of this post.

You may note too that I’ve begun tinkering with placing my sig ahead of time where’s there’s a space – before it disappears with magical brushwork I don’t want to cover 😏

Nothing more’s happened with this canvas yet, meanwhile looking like a misshapen balloon trying to become a cloud! 😂

Immediately below is a better rendition of applying partial edges amid a cluster with a bit more separation and lines to balance the curves – plus a nifty spot for my sig 😊

These pics, btw, are in order of when I laid them out, thus reflecting a bit of handwringing & learning – ugh!

And next is the one I like best so far. Afraid to even touch it now, lol!

I used a light blue watercolor pencil to sketch out where I liked the lines within the boundaries of the 6×6 canvas, before laying out the permanent black ink lines. The blue lines can stay (via being fixed by my now handy Spectrafix spray) as part of the overall pic, or – as I found out by accident (of course) – I can use a brush with clean water, and they’ll wipe away easier than lifting watercolor paint!

And next following, below, is my earliest pen and ink, which I hadn’t planned doing any lost edges with, but lost them anyways as I applied paint and removed masking fluid. Then came Dianne Mize’s handy timely Lost Edges post! Serendipity at its best 😊

[ update 02.26.20 – been meaning to link to a prev serendipity art moment for me, back late last year 😊 It eventually ended leading to the sale of an art piece in a completely unrelated way! Hope you’ll take a look ☺️ ]

The work below has gotten several makeovers as I struggle to handle watercolor paint and water. A dear friend at lunch the other day said I shouldn’t do anymore to it and I said ok, then today did just a little to it. It’d kept begging me to! I promise I only “touched” it up! ❤️

The work seen in the same frame below it on the wall is a new masking fluid project, more on it further below!

And the painting immediately below is I think my so-far, best attempt, at both pen & ink and lost edges. Last night, when I finally left it for dead, I was very unhappy how it looked. This morning, after a pretty good night’s rest, it seemed better. I very lightly tinkered with it today and like it more. Not great, maybe not even really good, but not bad 😊

And now finally I come to my 2nd attempt to mask out an idea originally begun with Violet Blooms – this I’ll just call v2 for now. There’s more simplicity and clarity, I hope! Plus some directional lines.

What I haven’t decided is if I’ll again do a dark background, or go light this time. We..shall..see 😊

Below v2 is my 1st Violet Blooms masking fluid updated to near finish –
With a new title!

As per my previous update post on Violet Blooms, I was very-very unhappy with my decisions of how I’d applied the masking lines and and didn’t separate the forms properly. I didn’t exactly get over it, lol, but I did look for and find a way to still make this work as another of my accidental creations 😊

I filled in some but not all of the masked areas with yellow, and enhanced the dark bordering over most the the image, esp on the top half.

And, I’ve changed the name to what I see good in it now –
The Earth is a Garden 💕

It’s a very good thing I have a fluid imagination ❤️

Right now I have the relative rare luxury of allowing myself to explore what I can do in this new medium of watercolors. I feel I’ve graduated from elementary school to Jr High, middle school I guess nowadays 😊 High School’s still a distant vague dream of what might be 😊

That’s ok. It’s nice to have some adolescent dream still remaining in my soon to be 70 year old body later this year ❤️

Be well everyone! Be creative! Explore your own work, or explore samples from artists like Dianne Mize and Carolyn Buchanan. It’s all good 💕

Adan

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Thanks again, everyone! 😊

Adan

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