Exercise 4.5 Find the Negative Space

For this exercise, you will use the same kitchen image from exercise 4.2 to find negative space. The negative space areas are not obvious objects, but the areas behind the objects. You will find the shape a gap makes between two or more distinct objects.

Materials needed:

Depending on if you have a printer or not, there are two different options available.

Option #1 – Preferred

• 4B pencil, Sharpie, or ball point pen – any type of pen that will show up on printer paper.
• A 8.5X11 inch print of the below kitchen image (in color or black and white) – The print should be as big as possible on the paper with minimum margins. For the exercise, you will add the necessary angles to the printed image and take a photo of it. Make sure all added angles show up on the image after you take a photo of it.

Option #2 This may work if you do not have a printer, however, it may be less precise and hard to fit everything. Keep it neat.

• Viewfinder and erasable marker
• Have the kitchen image pulled up on a computer monitor. Line up and place the viewfinder over the image on the monitor. Make sure the image is as large as possible in the viewfinder window. Draw the needed information on the viewfinder with your wet or dry marker.  Take a photo of your monitor with the viewfinder aligned and attached with the finished work on it.

Time to complete: 20 minutes. Use the full 20 minutes to work on this exercise.

Instructions:

• Find four or more negative space areas to fill in.
• Draw around the edges of the negative space first and then fill the area in to form a solid negative space area, similar to the horse example in chapter four. The negative space perimeter does not need to be completely enclosed by district objects. An example of this in the horse image is the open bottom between the legs. The two legs are distinct, however, the bottom is just ground with no distinct end. The negative space area is enclosed by a line created between the bottom of one hoof to the next.

Group the photo of your finished image with exercises 4.2-4.5 in one file when submitting your work. Do not submit exercises 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, and 4.5 as individual files. If using a viewfinder, take individual images of each exercise and combine them into one file.