Negative Space Still Life: Examples and Ideas

This assignment is about drawing shapes (space/air) between and around the objects in the still life and model stand surface. The black areas in the student examples presented here represent the negative space. 

As in previous assignments proportions and aligning shapes horizontally and vertically will be required. As in most drawings anticipate that mistakes will happen and try to enjoy the process where adjustments will be inevitable. 

For this assignment you will be required to mix your black by either mixing alizarin red and pthalo green (dark green) together OR mixing raw umber and pthalo blue (dark blue) together. 

Editing and adjusting this work will involve a back a forth process of using the black and the white.   Generally students will start with the black  mixture and will use more of the mixed black  than the white. If you feel you are a person that will require many adjustments in your drawing anticipate using more quantities of white and utilizing the back and forth process between the white and the black. 

Note: Ensure that the white paint which is purchased is good quality and is opaque when applied over the black paint. Ask a sales person at the art supply store (book store) if you are not sure. If the paint is not opaque it will not cover mistakes.

As in most drawings for the first term of this course the drawing in the above video demonstrates the idea of thinking about comparing proportions of shape, considering where the shapes line up with each other in terms of vertical and horizontal alignments. Most obviously demonstrated in this video is the first shape drawn starts in the center of the paper as the building block for the entire drawing. All shapes proceeding after the first shape will build out around from that first shape when comparing proportions from one shape to the other, and considering vertical and horizontal alignments of shapes to each other.

Selecting the Composition

Select an area of the still life (composition) that will give you a reasonable challenge and complex drawing with interesting shapes. Do not select the entire still life to draw. In most cases depicting the entire still life will be too difficult and will take an excessive amount of time.

The above example demonstrates an excellent choice of composition, use of interesting shape and over all demonstrates an expertise in depicting accurate proportions and comparing horizontal and vertical alignments.


In the above assignment the initial composition was too simple and not challenging enough. 99% of the time while in class students should never start their drawing over. Instead of starting over with this assignment  an additional sheet of paper was added to the drawing increasing the scale and visual impact towards the viewer. In the end the work demonstrates an excellent choice of composition and use of interesting shapes.
48 x 18 inches Acrylic on paper





The above drawing meets all the assignments despite having drawn the entire still life.

Unfortunately this drawing was damaged with multiple folds/wrinkles (bottom right corner)  Please ensure your drawings are not folded wrinkled or shredded on the edges due to a disregard for storage or transportation of work. Repair any tares when submitting work for presentation during critiques or for final evaluation of the work. In most contexts for this course if a damaged work is presented, over all the message sent is that the artist does not care about the work (and course) and that there is a lack of professionalism towards the project and objectives of the assignment. In most contexts presenting damaged work will negatively effect the evaluation of any work in this course.





The above work demonstrates a very good composition, proportions and and some use of editing and going back and forth with the white and the black. Overall this work is a little wrinkled from the over use of water mixed in with paint. This type of wrinkling is fine in most cases and in some contexts could become part of the language in an artwork. Sometimes excessive editing has occurred which causes a physical presence of paint (thick paint and mark making) Having a thickly painted work with some rough edges is fine provided the proportion, interesting shapes and composition objectives are achieved in the assignment.