
It’s the negative space that allows your subject to breathe. Negative space creates that fundamental balance in your composition. And as a result, it’s easier to convey the desired message through your art. In contrast, when you have more negative space around your subject.Īny onlooker will know where to look instead of being pulled all around the canvas. It’s easy to feel like you need to cover the entire canvas.īut then, your subject matter gets so crowded that it’s hardly noticeable at all. And you wouldn’t be alone – so don’t feel embarrassed. You may have even been guilty of creating a painting or drawing like this. It can be overwhelming to the point where you just want to look away.

The effect is that you don’t know where to look first. Your subject will stand out moreįirstly, think about whether you’ve seen any paintings that were just too busy for you to take in all the details.

Here are some reasons to consider negative and positive space when creating art. It could be the difference between a bold painting and an underwhelming one. Negative space can bring many benefits to a piece of art. Without negative space, your artwork could look too busy or even overwhelming. The negative space draws the eye to the areas the artist wants you to focus on.Īnd as it’s an art fundamental, you should think about negative space whenever you’re creating art. It’s the interaction between negative and positive space that makes art interesting. It has thick dark lines, but it’s the space between these lines that make it all come together. While the person in the foreground is the positive space in this artwork.īut the negative space could also be the gaps within the art too. In this case, the sky itself would be the negative space. It could be the background in a painting, a border, or even part of the image itself.įor example, imagine a drawing of someone standing in a field silhouetted against the sky. But that term can also be misleading, as the negative space doesn’t have to be white. Negative space is the white space in any piece of artwork. And that’s where negative space comes in. But this will vary in each piece of art.īut how the artist frames the subject will make all the difference to how we see their artwork. The positive space could be a person, a tree, an action scene. It’s what the artist wants you to notice. It’s what the artist puts down on the page or canvas – the paint applied or the pencil strokes. You may also find it referred to as active or activated space. The positive space is the subject matter of any drawing or painting. What is positive space?įirst, let’s identify what positive space is in a composition.

So let’s take a closer look at what the negative and positive spaces are in art. We’ve all seen it, even if we didn’t realize it at the time.Īnd like yin and yang, negative space also has an opposite: positive space. Negative art plays a huge role in art, even if it doesn’t get the credit it deserves. The Wrap Up What is Negative Space in Art?īefore diving in deeper, we first need to cover an essential question.
