Space

Artist Statement

Negative Space Leaves

Pencil, Gel Pen, Felt-tip Pen

11"x14"

I decided to draw little bubbles in the background of my leaves because I wanted to do a pattern instead of making a design or drawing an actual background for the leaves. I chose to do this because I wanted it to seem like the leaves were the main part of the piece instead of a background where they fit in and it would look like the whole piece is equally important.

I primarily used felt-tip and gel pens. I used these materials because I knew I wanted my bubbles pretty small so I didn't want to use a pen or marker with a big tip so I could make them the size I wanted easily. I also used two different kinds of pens because I wanted to have different textures, boldness, color, and size in my background, and the easiest way I could think of to accomplish that was to use two different pens.

Through the process of this piece, my background idea didn't really change much, because I knew that I wanted to do some sort of pattern. But one of my ideas that changed frequently was if I wanted to add color in the background or not, I ultimately chose not to add color because as much as I wanted the leaves to stand out from the background and having the leaves being the only white on the paper would really accomplish that. I also wanted the leaves to fit into the background in a way, because of this I decided to make the whole piece black and white so the leaves still popped but also fit in more than if the background was colored.