Artistic Images/ Drawing Tips/Negative space

Negative space

  There are several ways you can improve your drawing skills. One of them is learning how to draw the negative space.

Negative space is the space around an object. If you look at that space closely and draw it accurately you can wind up with a pretty accurate positive drawing.  If attention is paid to negative spaces, the forms will take care of themselves. The objects and the spaces around them fit together like pieces in a puzzle. Every piece is important and together they fill up all of the area within the four edges. 

                    subject                  (Paper)

Drawing something by drawing nothing

Why draw the space around the object rather than the object itself ? Your mind will stop relying on what it knows and let your right brain (the creative side) takeover. The problem with drawing objects is sometimes we know too much about them. 

 You will learn to draw what you’re actually seeing by drawing the negative space of your subject. Try to get your mind off what the actual subject is, and instead draw the space around the subject. In doing this you’ll also draw the outer edges of your subject and get a more accurate and interesting drawing.  

         We can recognize these objects even though they were not actually drawn.  The space around them was drawn and therefore the objects came to be.

Gaze at the object you’re about to draw for a few moments. Just take in what you are seeing before you start to draw. Your job is to draw only the spaces one after another.  You don’t have to figure anything out about the object. Don’t argue with your shapes!  Don’t question why the shapes go this way or that, just draw them as you see them. Shapes are more pleasing to our eyes than details.  Therefore more significant.  

The eye in this drawing was never actually drawn. The space around the iris (or the white of the eye) was drawn first. Then the space between the eyelid and eyebrow. Next,. the space around the top of the eyebrow, finally the shape beneath the eye. By looking at these shapes and drawing them accurately it is much easier to draw the eye at this difficult angle.