Drawing of „negative areas“

„Negative areas“ means, that a motive is not only the motive itself, but also the areas sourrounding it or being surrounded. These areas often are ignored, because the drawer puts all his concentration onto the motive itself.

When describing the method of “geometric outside area” I described, that the areas “being too much” have to been cut off. These cutted areas are “negative areas”.

You can get the outlines of your motive in fact by drawing the areas, being around the motive. You simply define these “negative areas” as your new motives. Then you can use all strategies described up to now to apprehend these forms.

In the example picture some of these areas are collered. Very often such areas are the empty space between persons and objects or the space between body and arms resp. legs.

As mentioned before, this method is seldom used alone, mostly you'll use a mix of all methods. And remember §1 !