When I first learned about positive and negative space, it was a huge aha moment for me, all of a sudden, I was able to really look at what I was drawing and be able to translate proportion onto the page. It really took my observational techniques to the next level. And it's really interesting because you're actually taught to do this when you're a child when drawing to a grid. That's a really common exercise that we do when we're young. And it can actually really help us to understand this concept. So we're not going to be drawing to a grid today.

But it still uses that same principle that we learnt when we were younger. So positive and negative space is about looking at the objects and the surroundings in relation to each other. The positive space can be thought of as the light areas or the areas that come forward and the negative space can be thought of as the dark areas are the areas that are receding away from us as well. The positive space could also be thought of as the opposite In the negative space is the area surrounding that object. When observing both of these things in relation to each other, we can better interpret the proportions of our subjects and then draw more accurately with confidence. As a simple example, silhouettes have a clearly defined light and a dark area.

And when observing for our drawings, we can choose to draw the light area or we can choose to draw the dark area. And sometimes when we choose to draw the space in between or the dark area, we start to draw what we see rather than what we know. So it's a great way to get a sense of right brain mode as well. So to make this a little easier today, I'm going to start out by drawing a rectangle that is 14 centimeters by 12 centimeters. Once I have this basic box outline, I want to look at my bird and look at where it is placed in its own box. And I want to mark the points roughly by eye without measuring where the beak touches the edge where the wing touches.

And that's quite in the middle there. And then my other wing is going to end up a little bit down here. So now I've got a basic guide as to the outlines as to where my bird wants to go. And when I am working holistically and in right brain mode, I want to make sure that I'm looking at things as an overall point of view. So I'm going to go ahead at first and roughly marking where the bird is on the page in relation to these dots. So I'm giving it a basic shape without worrying about any detail and just marking off roughly where the major elements are going to go.

And there'll be lots of things around there. And then I can start going back. And looking at these lines in more detail, I roughly know where they need to go now. And all I want to do is confidently start by doing one line, I can use my eraser for this, and I'm going to follow this first line and follow the curves that it makes naturally within my overall shape. Now, I'm not trying to make my lines Tunisia at this point, because this is a base drawing. And it's for a practice.

So now I'm marking in the other side of the bed, and I'm really looking at the gap between where those black areas are and the distance so that I know where my line is meant to curve and where my line is meant to go. I'm looking at the gap of where the black area is. And then I'm also looking at the gap between the black area and the edge of the page. Now I don't Have to continue doing the same line, I can jump and go to different spots of the drawing so that I can then come back and see where my original line is placed in relation to these other lines. So if I go around here, and just draw that area up there, I can see now that I've got a very large gap between this part and to the back of the wing.

And personally if I look up at the top of the page and see where the top part of the wing and this line is marked, I can see this line is quite good. But this one is too far over on the page. So I am going to go back and I am going to adjust this slide so that it's a little bit further over here. And then I can extend that line out properly. So that that's where it's meant to be and then this curve can grow back. And now I can see that I have the correct size gap between those two areas.

And that is how we work with the positive and the negative space and looking at the proportions between them, so that we can then work out where our item is. Now it's important to also think about what we're drawing. And with the principle of the positive and negative space, we are not drawing a bird. This is really, really important to remember not today we are not drawing a bird. We are drawing a bunch of shapes and lines that are related to each other. We are drawing sizes that simply relate to each other.

And if we continue to look at the relationship between the shapes and and narrow down those proportions and make sure that we're drawing the proportions correctly And editing as we go, then we will have a much better end result. If we try and draw a bird, that's when our left brain takes over. And we start to draw what we know, instead of what we're seeing. So this is a great practice drawing something that's easily identifiable, like a bird shape, it stops you from drawing what you know, it forces you to draw exactly what you're seeing. And when you apply this principle to other objects, it will render some really fantastic results. I pretty much use this practice with every drawing that I do, I really do like to look at positive and negative space and teach myself about the proportion of the item that I am drawing.

Now it's very easy to forget to focus on the overall when you're doing this and you end up focusing on the detail that's in one little area and I'm doing it now I'm focusing on the detail here, when really I still need to be looking at My role and making sure that I'm going back and forward so that I am still maintaining the integrity of the overall shape. So I'm going to go over this side, it this a little bit, and then I can come back to this side and I can see where I've gone wrong and what's wrong with my proportion over here. So remembering the whole time to look at the overall end of the detail and just going back over at the end and covering my drawing with a bit of defined lines, so just using a more confident pen to redraw and define a little bit of the shape.

And there we go. We have a bird and you can see it's pretty close roughly there's a little bit of difference. in there, especially in that neck area, but we roughly have the outline of a bird. And we have really helped to enhance our drawing skills by learning to look at the spaces in between at the negative and the positive and the relationships between the edge of the drawing and your subject as well. It'll really help you to improve proportion. If you would like to further this practice, and to try a different drawing, I encourage you Next, to do the silhouette of the Tiger that I have provided.

It's really a quite a complicated version of this exercise. It has elements of symmetry, yet the patterns within the face are not entirely symmetrical. So you really need to keep on your toes when you're looking at the different shapes that interact with each other. And it's a really great one for practicing drawing those individual parts while maintaining the holistic overview of, of the tiger. So I encourage you to do that one and I've also provided a moon image that has Some beautiful branches reaching across it that would be quite an advanced study of this practice. So see how you go with those two images as well.