Leaves Negative Space Drawing

For our second negative space drawings, we started by collecting leaves outside of the school to use as objects for our positive space. I chose five maple leaves because of their distinctive and recognizable shape, one that I always associate with fall. Then, after drawing a 1 inch border around our paper, arranges the leaves in a way that created an interesting negative space. I then used a hard-lead pencil to trace a light border around the leaves. After doing this, I debated between using colored pencil to make small red-orange starbursts (not the candy) throughout the negative space or using a thin gold marker to draw small swirls to take up the entire space. After experimenting with both techniques on scrap paper, I decided on the gold swirls as I’d never tried using a paint marker and I enjoyed using it.

In my project, I incorporated elements of line, color, and space to create various principles of design. The project centered around the idea of the negative space in our drawings would somehow connect with fall, so I used curved lines and swirls to depict the movement of wind. The color I used (shiny gold) reflected the colors of fall and helped to balance the page as well as contrasting against the white and the empty spaces of the leaves. Of course, space was used to form the positive space of the leaves and isolate the negative space where I would be drawing.

One aspect of fall I choose to incorporate into my project was wind. I illustrated this by filling the negative space with small swirls that almost stemmed off of one another without touching. The wind is a golden color, pulling from the standard colors of fall and hinting at the leaves fall wind carries. The larger negative space leaves could even be blowing in the wind surrounding them. Fall is one of my favorite seasons, with its vibrant colors colors and feeling of anticipation for the coming winter. In literature, wind can be used as an ominous foreshadowing tool, and in this case it warns of winter. In this art piece I am proudest of the copacetic formation of the wind, and how nicely it isolates the positive space. I also love the shiny gold color of the paint marker. My biggest struggle came in deciding which technique I wanted to use to fill in the negative space, and then using the pens without letting out too much ink. However, I was able to decide that I likes the wind pattern more, and the pens were fairly easy to use one I got used to them.