Negative Space Still Life

Artist Statement

For this project, we drew the negative space around a number of stools. After practicing a couple of times, we began on a larger sheet of paper. The task was to see shapes around the subject which we were looking at. After drawing the one inch border and sketching the shapes with pencil, I began to think of something to fill the negative space. I decided to fill the entire background with a 3d cube pattern. This process took very long as the pattern is pretty intricate, and I got lost a couple of times. To shade in the cubes I chose five different markers, all of which were suttle, earthy colors. The biggest difficulty I had with the coloring was that when the marker overlapped, the color came out a shade darker. To solve this I had to use the same strokes on each cube to make it look like the lines were meant to be there. I was originally going to use watercolors, however this posed two different problems. For one, we were working on normal paper, not watercolor paper. Also, I wanted the coloring to be even and vibrant, which I found was difficult to achieve. The entire coloring process took me two classes, and some time at home, as it required a lot of focus. My project did not evolve a whole lot from the quick sketch we did previously. I had the same angle of the stools, and remained with the same shapes. I did try a couple of different patterns, yet I liked the cubes the best.

In my drawing, there are several elements of art including line, shape, color, and space. By using the markers I added color, as well as shapes. Also, the blank area is where the stools were, so I automatically incorporated space. There is definitely contrast in my art, which can be seen between the colored pattern and the blank space. There is also a clear pattern going on, and unity in the color palette I chose.

Because of the way I added to my art, there isn't much of a story. The pattern really doesn't have much of a meaning, except for maybe to evoke something from the viewer as they definitely stand out. As This piece doesn't directly relate to my life, I simply enjoy the colors and pattern. I am pretty happy with the pattern because there isn't an evident pattern in my cubes (like red always on the left, blue on the right). I understand and know the point of negative space, however my drawing doesn't perfectly emphasize it. The stools stand out more than I would like, so that is definitely something I would change. The reason why my stools stand out is not only because the pattern is the same throughout the whole background, but also that I did not draw the stools as up close as others. Overall, as soon as I finished coloring I thought of an idea that would have been more interesting. I would have liked to have done doodles of different cities in each space.