 Welcome artists! This is a Patreon inspired video. I got a lot of requests on doing a video on negative painting and we can truly learn to see the positive and the negative while we draw or while we paint and it is a huge advantage to growing as an artist. Many of us remember the typical is it a vase or is it two faces example and I did my own little rendition of this and the wonderful thing is that negative painting or drawing works across various types of subject matter whether it be animals such as this rabbit that I'll do a quick little demonstration on or it actually works the same for flowers and foliage as in this leaf that again I did another quick little example and then ultimately for more complicated subject matter such as landscapes we talk about negative painting a lot when we're carving out trees or clouds and working from big shapes down to small shapes so join me in this lesson where I will reveal hopefully and unlock the secrets of negative painting and how it can help you grow as an artist. Now if you are seeing this video on the Monet Cafe YouTube channel you will be seeing the basic version which has lots of great content on the concepts of negative painting but for the full version I'm offering that for those who become my patrons on my Patreon page it's only $5 a month you can cancel it anytime and there's the link above there'll also be a clickable link at the end of this video. Alright let's get started I really had a fun time with this lesson and I again did the typical many of you probably remember this example is it a vase in the middle or is it two faces of profiles images of faces facing each other and it's just a very basic and simple example to show what is the positive and what is the negative and it really all depends in this example on what you're focusing on and that's the point of this lesson is we can train our brains to see the negative shapes as we draw or paint by what we focus on we are primarily geared and kind of pre-programmed I guess to see the positive shapes we're looking for the things I guess that are material in our world instead of the spaces and if we can learn to see the spaces it's going to enhance our overall compositions drawing capabilities and our painting effectiveness as we grow as artists. Now that was a very basic example but the same concept in principle works on more complicated subject matter for example this rabbit I chose something like this because it's got the same idea it's got kind of a large positive shape in the middle and it has some negative spacing around the perimeter around the edges now what I did and I advise you to practice this find an image yourself that is for my patrons I will include this image for you to find an image that is kind of like a big main shape with negative space around it now here's a tip try to as you practice these to get better at this try to pick an image make it a standard size or a size like an 8 by 10 or 5 by 7 and have your drawing surface the same size I mean proportionally I have a 5 by 7 on my computer screen or my iPad screen here and it may not it's a 5 by 7 in theory in proportion it wouldn't be if I measured it with my ruler but my paper I did do a 5 by 7 so they are proportionately the same that means my negative spaces and my positive spaces will be the same it makes it a little bit easier for composition and drawing when you have the same proportions like that so all I'm doing now is I'm looking at now I'm carving in the dark shapes and I love the word carving as an artist when we're doing paintings because we're usually working with broader strokes rather than line as in drawing or sketching and I like both I like painting and sketching but when you carve in the negative spaces you you learn to see that negative shape and how it correlates or relates to the positive shape which I'm drawing in now kind of sketching it in and I do advise as we talk about as often often as artists working large too small so when you sketch something in even before you start a painting your preliminary sketch your outline if you're doing one it needs to be very simple basic and editable how that's a hard word to say be able to edit it as you work I actually think those sketchy lines you know when you just kind of you're kind of working the overall image I think they add to the painterly effect you know for example I didn't go in here and start just drawing harsh lines for this little rabbit immediately I got in a big overall the fundamental shape and that's really point one that I write down after this we're first working on the fundamental shape that was that big kind of middle shape of that rabbit I kind of looked at the V between his ears I looked at the negative spacing on the left side of him and on the right side of him and I just first worked that fundamental shape before I got into the the more specifics now as I drew his face I was still working on positive versus negative spacing at when I get to the landscape example that one is going to be in real time so from my patrons will receive the full version on on my patreon page we'll receive the full version of this with the real-time footage of the landscape paintings so all of these things apply for whatever subject matter you're working on actually I think it's the leaf example that I do next so again I I've done this I was not good at this when I first started drawing I tried to I remember I would just see the positive shape and not compare positive and negative as I was working it is huge and getting better with your drawing and painting skills and it's it's nothing that's all that hard to do you just have to practice it so I encourage with this lesson to practice these things sometimes we just want to start painting and we go for it and we forget a lot of these things are practice practice practice and it really does help all right there's my cute little bunny and now as I was saying we are looking for fundamental shapes as I paint I talk about this all the time big shapes what is the shape not what are the details and this case I'm doing a leaf that I'm looking at the shape and I can see it looks like an upside down heart so instead of trying to draw in all of those little spaces in between I'm getting in the fundamental shape and now this work now I'm using dark on the example on the photograph white is the negative spacing I'm I already have the white paper so I'm carving in with dark so that I'm making the negative spaces a dark color instead of the white of the paper so you can see how the carving works but again I talk a lot in while I'm doing my painting process on how we're just looking at those big fundamental shapes we're not trying to draw in any details and then we kind of carve in as we go and you know that's a thing I'm sorry for my crazy hair I was literally doing this after doing yard work and all too many other chores to mention but as I was saying a lot of times many questions I get is how do I get that painterly style and I really believe that doing the fundamental shapes and doing this technique of positive and negative and kind of working your way from the ground floor up to the final painting rather than getting so specific early on is a huge way to have a painterly ending result to your painting so you're working big to small it's like you're you're carving down into the final painting so what that does is it causes you to not get so caught up on the fine details too quickly all right now this is the point where I am providing the real-time content for my patrons on my patreon page but Monet cafe viewers don't worry there was plenty of free content for you guys to practice on those things but from here forward I will be going to a little bit more complicated subject matter which is a landscape which I know we love to do and Monet cafe you'll be able to see this footage sped up but my patrons will get my actual commentary on this while I'm painting all right guys enjoy I hope you're learning a lot and practice practice practice it really does make you better artists so I hope that was a beneficial lesson on the value and the advantages of learning to see positive and negative at the same time and work with big shapes and seeing our negative shapes so practice practice practice and if you're in my patreon group please share your final results if you try any of these to our patreon exclusive group on Facebook Susan Jenkins patreon group otherwise join our group on Facebook Monet cafe art group all right artists make it a blessed day and as always happy painting