What do you see? ...a note on positive and negative

Identifying general shapes and noticing the negative space.

 One very handy tool artists use, is the attention they pay to negative space. Most of the time our eyes are trained to focus on positive general shapes--the overall shape of the object. And that makes complete sense since the general shape, more then color or texture, helps us identify what we are looking at and gives us general orientation to maneuver through our environment. For example, when we look at leaves, we often rely on their shape to identify what they are rather then their color. This is particularly useful with a leaf like poison oak since it changes colors through the seasons.

But if we want to do more then just identify objects and, for example, notice the beauty of what we see, there are other perspectives we can take. One perspective is to step into a conscious awareness of the negative space and the shapes it creates.

Take a look at the image at the top of the post, what is the positive (black) shape?
....can you identify a set of hands?

Now look at the negative space (the space with green and brown colors)? What shape do you notice?
The negative space is forming the shape of a tree.

Now take a look at the images below, what are the positive shapes? what new shapes can you notice forming in the negative space?

  





Share your perspective on our Facebook page at Fine Art Adventure and come to Musical Drawing class  at the Mission Cultural Center to find out how to use this positive and negative perspective to draw objects more accurately and build more creative compositions.