Negative drawing is a big part of all my drawings. Its a useful technique that can bring realism when used correctly. So, what is negative drawing?
Well, negative drawing is basically drawing without actually drawing. Its drawing something by drawing around it. for example, look at this image.
The white square is drawn negatively and the black square is drawn positively. The white that you see would be the paper that you are drawing on. It was drawn by drawing around the shape of the square leaving the area white. The white area is the negative space. In negative drawing the white space is not erased, its created by drawing around it.
The correct method for negative drawing is to observe the shapes formed around or in between object(s). Once you understand the shapes you begin shading the area around these shapes revealing the negative space. Drawing the outline first and then shading outside the outline is not negative drawing. Positive drawing is the opposite of this, which is what most of us do to draw. We draw the outline and we draw in the detail, this is positive drawing.
The image above was drawn by shading around the shapes without drawing the outline first. This could easily be blades of grass overlapping each other. But this is just the outline, you can then add the detail to suggest overlapping blades . Once you have the shape you are looking for, you can add detail or in the case of whiskers, they can stay totally white.
This technique is incredibly useful when you want to create different effects. Its great when drawing whiskers and grass. Here are more examples of negative drawing, these are simple but they show basically what negative drawing is.
I use negative drawing often in my drawings, especially for drawing realistic animal hair. In the image above, the drawing with the three lines was created using the stylus tool that i have, a pen with no ink. I used the pen to indent on the paper leaving white lines, then i passed the pencil over and it left a clean white line. This is a technique that is great for hair texture and highlights. I will explain it with much more detail when i do the hair tutorial.
Exercise
Here is an exercise for you to work on, look at the image above and draw the green leaves using negative drawing. Shade the area outside of the leaves, so that you’re left with the shape of the leaves,the negative space. If you need some help you can look at the image below to see what areas need to be shaded to get the negative space. If you have any questions, please comment or contact me.
Negative Drawing
(7 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Loading ...
Trackback URL || 
PermalinkOne Ping to “Negative Drawing”
10 Responses to “Negative Drawing”
-
1. Anton Says:
November 21st, 2007 at 3:24 pmThanks for the tutorials. I was waiting for them for a long time
Keep the good work, and thanks. -
2. Anton Says:
November 21st, 2007 at 3:24 pmThanks for the tutorials. I was waiting for them for a long time
Keep the good work, and thanks. -
3. onlypencil Says:
November 22nd, 2007 at 12:54 amYoure Welcome, im working on a couple at the moment and will be up soon. Hope to see you back. take care and welcome
-
4. onlypencil Says:
November 22nd, 2007 at 12:54 amYoure Welcome, im working on a couple at the moment and will be up soon. Hope to see you back. take care and welcome
-
5. Arnold Says:
August 10th, 2008 at 4:08 pmyour work is amazing and I can’t wait to start trying your techniques, but before I start I was wondering what kind of paper you use and what difference it makes. thanks.
-
6. onlypencil Says:
August 10th, 2008 at 8:38 pmThank You Arnold, Well for these tutorials i use canson bristol vellum, which has a slight tooth, its great for adding a bit of texture to your drawings. If you want something smooth, i would recommend Bristol smooth paper. This one is much smoother which is great for skin and other smooth textures. Its also great for adding fine detail which mechanical pencil.
-
7. onlypencil Says:
August 10th, 2008 at 9:38 pmThank You Arnold, Well for these tutorials i use canson bristol vellum, which has a slight tooth, its great for adding a bit of texture to your drawings. If you want something smooth, i would recommend Bristol smooth paper. This one is much smoother which is great for skin and other smooth textures. Its also great for adding fine detail which mechanical pencil.
-
8. pratik Says:
November 3rd, 2008 at 9:32 pmi need a way to improve on negative drawings fast!!!!!
this helped but it'll take at least 5 months to master i need to draw a wolf… i finally got the outline perfect… the hair the most important part is the part i cant do! well this kind of helped!!! ur much better than me b any chance do u teach at IS 125? my teachers draws better than you but she focusus on other peices of art so i cant get a variety like you can Ur doing awesome! gl on the cat! (im dong one cat too) -
9. Arissa Says:
January 8th, 2009 at 10:51 amExcellent Job! You helped me A LOT! I needed some help right away for this Drawing I class.. And now I will be able to pass b.c of your help! Thanks
^_^
-
10. Reetesh Gosai Says:
March 4th, 2011 at 11:56 amHello Sir,
Your Drawings are awesome.Visited your website your blog and everything is all great.But recently went to your tutorials sections and found that all the imageshack images are blocked by some frod type image.Means i cant see any image or tuts that have drawn.It says register domanin in imageshack.us.Can u please check it out and find out the solution to it so it would be helpful for the begners.Thank You.
Regards
Reetesh Gosai
(JaiShriRam
December 4th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
[...] recommend that you first understand what im talking about before going on. You can read the article here. The way i draw hair is a combination of negative drawing and scratch board. Scratchboard or [...]