Last week in this newsletter I talked about using white to show moving water, but there are many times when you can use the white of your paper to show a bright light in your painting.
The painting above was the demonstration I did for the Marco Island Arts Center for Dillman's and it was extremely important to use whites to
make the sun shine bright in the scene.
Below is the start of the second demonstration I did at the center and it shows how to use white of the paper to show where the sunlight is compared to where the shadow is. Even if these buildings were not actually white, I would make the sunlit side white to show the light.
The 3 times to leave the white of the paper are 1. to show the difference between the lights and shadows.
2. use
the white of the paper when the actual object that you are painting is white, with sunlight on it or not.
3. use white of paper for highlights.
The easiest way to leave the white of your paper is to use
liquid frisket, but make sure you realise that the edges will always be hard, so if you want soft
edges don't use the frisket.