What Is A Negative Shape

Shape is one of the visual elements which refers to an enclosed 2-dimensional area. You create a shape whenever you draw a line that connects at both ends.

In this postal service, I discuss the unlike types of shapes you will encounter in art, how to use them, and provide primary painting examples. I cover:

Geometric and Organic Shapes
Shape and Simplification
Positive and Negative Shapes
Light and Dark Shapes
Large and Small Shapes
Other Examples of Shape in Art
Boosted Readings
Thanks for Reading!

Geometric and Organic Shapes

In that location are two major types of shape in art: geometric and organic.

The geometric shapes are mathematical and include squares, circles, and triangles. Get familiar with these geometric shapes equally they class the foundation for whatever field of study you pigment.

Paul Cezanne, Apples, 1890 (Geometric Shapes) — Paul Cezanne, Apples, 1890

Organic shapes are irregular or asymmetrical. You lot will encounter them frequently when painting the landscape (think of the shapes which make upward clouds, copse, or rocks).

Isaac Levitan, Evening Bells, 1892 (Organic Shapes) — Isaac Levitan, Evening Bells, 1892

Shape and Simplification

When y'all start a new drawing or painting, one of your offset tasks is to break the field of study down into bones shapes. Instead of seeing trees, rocks, grass, and sky, you lot should encounter squares, circles, triangles, and organic shapes. A subject will exist much less against once you have broken information technology downwards into these basic shapes. Instead of having to solve one large and challenging puzzle, yous tin solve several smaller just easier puzzles.

I volition show you what I mean using the reference photos below from New Zealand, taken whilst walking the Routeburn track. If I were to paint this, I would need to first pause it down into basic shapes to help me make sense of the countless shapes, lines, colors, values, and details.

Below are the of import shapes which I run into. With my initial sketch, I would at the very to the lowest degree try to capture these shapes. Notice how the shapes are created past changes in color, space, object, or light.

This is something y'all tin practice without even picking upward a paintbrush. Look around you lot whenever you take some downtime and intermission down what y'all see into bones shapes. Over fourth dimension, yous will outset to see these shapes instinctively.

Positive and Negative Shapes

Positive and negative shapes refer to the shapes created by changes in space. Positive shapes represent the space where objects exist, whilst negative shapes represent the infinite between those objects.

For case, in the painting beneath by John Singer Sargent, the female figure and tabular array are positive shapes. The groundwork and floor are negative shapes.

John Singer Sargent, Portrait of Madame X, 1884 (Positive and Negative Space)

An interesting point regarding positive and negative shapes is that they tend to influence each other. If you make a positive shape larger, the surrounding negative shape tends to go smaller, and vice versa.

For example, say you lot are painting a tree and you demand to get in larger in the limerick. One option (the obvious 1), would be to brand the tree larger. The other option would be to cut into the tree with the surrounding negative shape which represents the sky.

Yous could also make a positive shape appear less solid and singled-out by painting in some smaller, negative shapes. I did this in the painting below. The light blueish and majestic negative shapes help break upward the copse in the foreground to brand them announced less solid and rigid.

Dan Scott, Queenstown, New Zealand, 2019

Calorie-free and Dark Shapes

Another way to think nearly shape is in terms of light and dark (or light and shadow). This volition aid you continue your lights distinct from your darks, which is an important part of representational painting.

The abstract system of light and dark shapes is an important element of pattern and is known as notan. Below is an example using a portrait past Giovanni Boldini. When you simplify the lights and darks into two values, yous are left with an abstract notan design. Notice how with just these two shapes, you however become a sense of the female figure. A potent notan design can form a powerful foundation for the rest of your painting.

Giovanni Boldini, Girl With Black Cat, 1885 (Notan) — Giovanni Boldini, Daughter With Black Cat, 1885

Changes in light can create shapes fifty-fifty when in that location is no change in object or infinite. For case, in the painting beneath, shapes are created on the grassy land just by changes in light, even though the surface is apartment.

Georges Seurat, Woman with Umbrella, 1884

Below is another example of this past Alfred Sisley. Notice the stiff shadows bandage by the haystacks.

Tip: Cast shadows tend to be sharp and distinct, whilst course shadows tend to be softer.

Large and Modest Shapes

When you start breaking your subject downward into basic shapes, start wait for the largest, most dominant shapes, then work downwards from there towards the smaller, more intricate shapes.

Let me show yous what I mean past using the following painting by Edgar Payne every bit an instance:

Edgar Alwin Payne, Sunset, Canyon De Chelly, 1916 — Edgar Alwin Payne, Dusk, Canyon De Chelly, 1916

I have mapped out the dominant shapes beneath. These shapes make up the central construction of the painting.

Edgar Alwin Payne, Sunset, Canyon De Chelly, 1916 (Large Shapes)

I can and so break down those ascendant shapes into smaller, more than intricate shapes. These are the shapes that you will need to focus on later in the painting.

Edgar Alwin Payne, Sunset, Canyon De Chelly, 1916 (Small Shapes)

Other Examples of Shape in Art

Shape tends to exist a strong feature in most urban scenes due to the rigid nature of architecture. In Alfred Sisley's Church building in Moret, in that location is a beautiful coaction between positive and negative shapes, calorie-free and dark shapes, and geometric shapes created by the compages.

Alfred Sisley, Church in Moret, 1889 — Alfred Sisley, Church building in Moret, 1889

In Sargent'south painting below, discover all the interesting shapes created as the planes of the rocks change from light into shadow. These shapes are emphasized by a dissimilarity of warm lights against cool darks.

John Singer Sargent, Simplon. Pass, 1911 — John Vocalizer Sargent, Simplon. Pass, 1911

In Monet's turbulent seascape, a powerful negative shape is created past the gap in the cliff. Besides, discover the organic shapes which brand up the water (you lot may need to squint to simplify the values).

Claude Monet, Arch to the West from Etretat, 1883

Edgar Payne was known for his stylistic use of shape for painting the landscape.

Edgar Alwin Payne, Sycamore in Autumn, Orange County Park, c.1917 — Edgar Alwin Payne, Sycamore in Autumn, Orange Canton Park, c.1917

Notice how simplified and curtailed the blueish mountains are in the painting below.

Below is some other example of using shape to paint the landscape, particularly for the rigid mountain.

William Wendt, Where Nature Created by God

Beneath is a great example of simplifying the shapes by Winslow Homer. Notice how you lot tin can suspension the groundwork into three dominant shapes (the clouds, the light heaven, and the grass). With regard to the rocks, notice how simply the prominent rocks are outlined, whilst the rocks in shadow are left vague and ambigous. All this draws attending to the female figure sitting in the centre, who is painted with crisp and intricate shapes.

Boosted Readings

If you want to learn more well-nigh this topic, you lot should cheque out my posts on the principles of art and the other visual elements.

Thanks for Reading!

Cheers for taking the time to read this post. I appreciate information technology! Feel free to share with friends. If you desire more painting tips, check out my Painting University course.

Happy painting!

Dan Scott

Draw Paint Academy