{"id":557,"date":"2017-02-07T14:30:58","date_gmt":"2017-02-07T20:30:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pauseworks.com\/patkatzartwp\/?p=557"},"modified":"2017-02-06T20:38:04","modified_gmt":"2017-02-07T02:38:04","slug":"with-or-without","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pauseworks.com\/patkatzartwp\/recent-work\/with-or-without\/","title":{"rendered":"With Or Without? Survey Says…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>One of the things I love about watercolor is the brilliance of the pure white paper. To preserve that freshness, I\u2019m often inclined to leave a lot of the white paper showing. \u2013 especially in some of the vignettes that I create.<\/p>\n

On a recent excursion with the Saskatoon Plein Air painting group, I sketched a sweet little daffodil blooming in the Mendel Conservatory. I initially left the background white, with the flower framed by a black line squiggle.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

After scanning that image in its \u2018natural state\u2019, I decided to experiment by adding a contrasting blue background inside the frame.<\/p>\n

I then posted the two images to Facebook along with the questions: \u201cWith or without? And why?\u201d<\/p>\n

53 Facebook followers weighed in with their opinions. A huge majority (a whopping 94% of the voters) preferred the image \u2018with\u2019 the blue background.<\/p>\n

They gave these reasons: contrast highlights the flower, makes color more vibrant, makes it look warmer, gives it depth and dimension, makes it more positive,\u00a0feels more finished and complete, makes the flowers pop, and gives context.<\/p>\n

The two votes for \u2018without\u2019 chose the image with the white background because of its simplicity and understatement.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>One of the \u2018without\u2019 supporters mocked up a couple of images with colored mats to show how the frame choice could make the image pop in different ways. This reinforces the point made by another respondent who was squarely on the fence, saying the preference for a white or color background \u2018depends on the frame\u2019.<\/p>\n

One artist that I studied with (can\u2019t remember who) noted that if you are wondering whether you should or whether you shouldn\u2019t (change a line, add a color, tweak the background), the answer is always, \u2018Yes, you should.\u201d<\/p>\n

His point was that the change just might be successful; and if it isn\u2019t successful, at least you\u2019ve learned something about what NOT\u00a0to do next time.\u00a0Grand experiments in the pursuit of learning!<\/p>\n

PS \u2013 Are you wondering which version I prefer? That\u2019s just like asking a parent to choose a favorite child. I demur. I love them both.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the things I love about watercolor is the brilliance of the pure white paper. To preserve that freshness, I\u2019m often inclined to leave a lot of the white paper showing. \u2013 especially in some of the vignettes that I create. On a recent excursion with the Saskatoon Plein Air painting group, I sketched […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,16,4],"tags":[68,10,49,48,67,14,11,9,8,19,52,12,13],"class_list":["post-557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-behind-the-scenes","category-process","category-recent-work","tag-backgrounds","tag-fine-art","tag-florals","tag-flowers","tag-framing","tag-ink-watercolor","tag-pat-katz","tag-patricia-katz","tag-pauseworks-studio","tag-process","tag-saskatoon-plein-air-club","tag-watercolor","tag-watercolour"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pauseworks.com\/patkatzartwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pauseworks.com\/patkatzartwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pauseworks.com\/patkatzartwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pauseworks.com\/patkatzartwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pauseworks.com\/patkatzartwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/pauseworks.com\/patkatzartwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":572,"href":"https:\/\/pauseworks.com\/patkatzartwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557\/revisions\/572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pauseworks.com\/patkatzartwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pauseworks.com\/patkatzartwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pauseworks.com\/patkatzartwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}