Category: Negative and Positive Shapes

Still Life 2

Charcoal drawing on white sketch paper. Horizontal orientation. Consists of a still life scene with bottles, styrofoam shapes, branches and a metal crockpot all resting atop of a curtain.

This drawing was done practicing value, proportion, scale, and keeping negative/positive shapes in mind. For this drawing, I aimed to have the items as correctly placed as possible, which took many adjustments to get right. Looking through my viewfinder, this drawing closely resembles the actual still life scene. I believe my shading techniques have improved, but still need more shading to resemble life. To start, I tried to quickly draw the basic shapes and positioning, which made it easier to make adjustments to get the drawing right later on. Overall, this drawing shows three-dimensionality and recognition of each object’s different form. I tried to shade differently based on the different types of objects and materials. I found it difficult to draw shapes that I didn’t “know.” Like the styrofoam rectangular object in the foreground and the branch in the background. It was very difficult to get the shape/form/value right. I struggled with the curtain due to the way it was draped, and also drawing it reflecting in the pot. It is sometimes hard to show dimensionality with cloth.

Negative Space Still-Life

A collection of white shapes against a solid black background. The shapes include a book, a small round fan with a cord, and a pineapple. The small round fan and pineapple are stacked on top of the book, so the shapes blend together to create one larger shape.

This drawing was done of a still-life of a pineapple, small round fan (with a cord hanging off of the side), and a water bottle sitting on top of a book. Because all of the objects are placed near each other, the negative space style of the drawing makes them appear to be one large object. To create this drawing, I set up the still-life and did a rough sketch of the objects before carefully outlining the existing exterior lines of the objects. I then filled in the negative space with compressed charcoal to “black-out” the negative space of the scene. The most prominent concept in this drawing is negative and positive space, but aspects of basic shapes were also used to create the final product.

Negative Space Still Life

A negative space still life of a tea pot, boxes, and a can with a fabric backdrop

For this drawing, I tried to use negative space and contrast to define its lines instead of harder lines, to a degree of success. At first, the canvas was full of charcoal, and slowly erased away to detail the shapes.

I think I could’ve done better on this drawing. While I’ve upped the contrast on the picture, it has some obvious lines, as well as an overall messy look. Some shapes are easily made out, but others are less defined and trickier to analyze. If I redid this, I would likely be more deliberate in what I erase.

Cross-Contour Still Life

A Cross-Contour still life drawing of a spring, a ball, a vase, and a metal comb in grey with white contour lines. The background is orange,

For this drawing, I wanted to do a still life with some negative space qualities, as well as use cross contour and shading to give the objects depth in an interesting way. First, I drew out the objects in the still-life, then I drew the contour lines in. After that, I shaded in the shapes, letting the graphite contrast with the contour lines. Finally, I filled in the background to contrast with the objects in the frame

I think the visual effect could have been better executed with a more consistent background color, as well as shaded the shapes in darker to make the white color pop more.

That said, I’m happy with the concept and now have something to further develop if I want to.

“Bottles” Value Still Life

The objects in this drawing were all different colors and had different degrees of sheen, all sitting on a white table cloth. From the left, half of a matte white wine bottle can be seen with a small styrofoam ball sitting at the bottom right corner of the bottle. The ball casts a slightly longer, dark shadow onto the table cloth to the right. Behind the shadow is a glass bottle about the same height of the wine bottle. It casts a somewhat transparent shadow to its right that just begins to touch the base of a dark bocce ball. The objects in front of the bocce ball cast shadows on its left side, although there is still a cast shadow extending from the base of the ball to the left. A small, cylindrical shiny metal container and cone shaped lid rest between the glass bottle and the bocce ball. There is a small looped handle on top of the lid. The edge nearly touches the shadow cast from the small styrofoam ball on the left of the page. The container casts its own shadow to the right. Behind the bocce ball sits a white milk carton, the shape of a rectangular prism. The glass bottle casts a shadow on the left side of the carton that looks like hardly anything more than an outline. A decorative, cylindrical vase is placed behind both the carton and the bottle. It's left side is bright while it's right side is dark, with a gradient of shadow in between. Indents on the vase have their own shadows and highlights. The base of the cylinder becomes like a curved stand, and the vase curves inward before curving back out again with the base extending behind the glass bottle and the milk carton. Part of the base of the vase can be seen as a refracted image in the bottle. In the background, there are a few white desks with black table rims and legs, along with a grey chair.

I used vine charcoal to draw this picture and started by creating margins on my paper and marking the halfway and quarter way points along the edges. I used these marks to match up my drawing with what I saw using my viewfinder.

I began by mapping out and correcting the general shapes and positions of the objects with several gesture drawings, then I filled in the values of the positive space before moving on to the negative space and background.

It took me a while to draw this picture, although there are still details I missed; for example, the glass bottles had ridges on the top just below the neck that refracted the background image in interesting ways. Given more time, I would include more details like this.

Post #2 here we go

Black and white drawing a metal cube, 2 sets of chopsticks and a shot glass. The objects are left white with horizontal and vertical lin
Metal cube, chopsticks and shot glass represented with crosshatching and negative space shading

Cross hatching & Negative space

In this drawing the process of crosshatching and the emphasis of Negative space is used. Cross hatching is where lines are used to represent the shape of an object more, similar to Longitude and Latitude lines on a globe. Negative space is the gap between objects that create their own unique shapes.
In this piece I drew objects around my room emphasizing on their 3 dimensional shape as well as the 2 dimensional shapes created by the gaps between them.

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