Smooth Backgrounds without Masking Fluid

When working in the negative space and painting a background in around a foreground element that you want to keep clean, you might look at all the tight corners and crevices and think that the only possible way to accomplish the task would be with masking fluid. Not so - I rarely use masking fluid these days. I find that painting around is much faster and effective, and I feel that the various aspects of a piece are better integrated if I can avoid masking fluid's hard edges.

For this piece, in the initial stages, I painted around all the fish. I wanted the water to be smooth and blended, but not to interfere with the bright oranges and whites of the koi.

Started by using a round brush to lay in some greens quickly, starting from one corner where I do want a hard edge (the lower surface of the water). Work quickly, making sure the paint stays wet. It's not such a large area that this is difficult though. Starting in small tight corners is easiest.

The lower left area near the fish's tail is where I'm continuing the greens. Making sure that lower edge stays wet, I dilute the paint on my brush a bit, and then start to pull that wet edge downwards and around into the next chunk of background.

Dilute some more, and continue pulling that lower wet edge downwards until it fades into the white of the paper.

Once this layer dries completely, I can repeat this process, starting in a new corner and pulling the edges of the wet paint out to blend into the surroundings. As long as the edge always blends to clear, you can layer small sections of washes like this, and have a (mostly) seamless background.