Piano Stool – Negative Space

Positive and Negative space drawings

Positive space refers to objects themselves.
Negative space refers to the shapes of spaces between and around objects.  

Gather Materials:

• an artist’s journal, unlined notebook, or piece of paper
• pencil,
• a chair or stool
• ruler

Today’s Exercise

Negative Space Drawing of a Stool

This YouTube video is a great demo of this exercise.

• Carefully look for the negative spaces and recreate the space on your sketchpad.
• be careful to ensure that the spaces between are accurate and correctly lined up.
• you can use a ruler to make sure your lines are line up properly
• take one colour and colour in the negative spaces. You can practice working on value.  Press harder to create a darker value close to the stool and as you pull away ease up on your pressure to lighten the value.

Here is my attempt at a negative space piano stool

Reflections on the Exercise

• This was so hard!
• Need to start with a neutral background behind the object to reduce visual noise.
• Get a good angle on the stool before you start to draw – maybe next time, use a simpler stool.
• This exercise takes longer than a lot of the others. This is best done when I’m not feeling rushed.