Negative painting is extremely important. It will become one of your most valuable assets. If you want to grow as an artist, you must acquire this tool.
Simply defined, the negative space is the surrounding space or the air that is adjacent to an object as well as the in-between space. In the case of a portrait or still life, it will be the background. In landscapes, it is the sky when a tree shape is added. For objects such as chairs, it is the space between the legs. For any painting to hold together in a pleasing way, both the negative space and the positive space have to be abstract. For example, if your tree shape resembles an egg, you will have a poor positive shape. The deficiency will be doubled in the adjacent negative shape.
Every advanced artist works from his artistic right side of the brain as much as possible. In all the previous silhouettes, the white space was given as much importance as the black silhouette. Reverse painting will help you work from your abstract brain to correct unpleasant shapes. Let’s get a better understanding about this before we see the direct application of negative painting.
1. Positive Space in White
2. Negative Space in Black
Rubin’s vase will appear as a vase or as two faces in profile. When you see the vase you are connected to the symmetrical brain. When you see the two profiles you are using the artistic brain. Do you feel how your brain switches back and forth between the forms? This will happen to you automatically when you learn to focus on the surrounding space when painting by the same token as you depict the positive shape. If you were to draw the object while solely looking at the positive (white) space, you would have a harder time replicating the form. If you only paid attention to the negative (black) space, then you would end up with a much better result. You would bypass the stored symmetrical influence coming from your left part of the brain. Try it!
Andrew Loomis was a master at abstract shape design. To avoid symmetrical round heads in his portraits he depicted bumps on the hairlines to make them a bit wavy. Other expert portrait artists such as Anders Zorn will put hats and bandanas on their subjects to offset the helmet-head effect.
Still life artists will change round fruits into attractive carved out angled forms as if the round convex protrusions were sliced with a knife, and both sides would be altered slightly. That way they don’t end up being too circular or oval.