One of the hardest concepts for me when I was studying was the idea of "negative space" -how could you draw something that wasn't there? And why would you
want to? The answer to that question took me a loooong time to understand, but I now know that by correctly depicting the space
around things, you end up enhancing the subject you're trying to represent. Anyway, I took my students on a journey to study negative space and explore a new technique this week. We're creating silhouettes of birds and trees, but instead of the traditional black shadows, these silhouettes will be in white! I had them draw birds and tree branches and then outline the space around; aka negative space....tough concept, but they came through with flying colors!
Once they outlined their birds and trees, they filled the space with flowers and then colored it in so the only white o their papers would be the birds and trees. Now for the new technique; we used linseed oil to transform the oil pastels into paint! Much like watercolor pencils, except it's oil instead of water! This was actually the first kind of painting that I enjoyed as a kid!
Next week, they'll finish their background areas and color their birds and trees a bit but only using whites and greys to keep the silhouette feel to the piece- I'm pretty sure these are going to be amazing!
