Enrich Your Illustration Skills: How To Paint Negative Space

1. Intro : Hi, my name is Alice and I'm an illustrator from the Netherlands. This class is about painting the negative space. Painting the negative space means that you're not painting the object itself, but you are painting around the object, starting with a thumbnail sketch. With my design or your own. I will guide you step by step how to work with this technique. You will learn how to apply this technique so you can make beautiful backgrounds in your illustrations and also create more depth in your illustration work. I learned from my husband that soil worms or earthworms are very useful animals for soil health. I am going to paint a bunch of worms. Today, I made an illustration like this before. It was in black and white. But today I'm going to work with watercolors in three different colors. Follow me along in my worm quest, and I hope you will learn this technique to apply in your own illustrations. 2. Planning Your Illustration : I made this negative space painting some while ago. I really love this one. What I like about it is that it is completely made with black and white, just ink on top of it. There's some white ink. I would like to make a worm series. I'm exploring different shapes and different illustrations. Once this sketch is done, I'm going to transfer it onto watercolor paper. The sketch doesn't have to be perfect, but it has to be slightly darker so I can see it on the light box. This was a very good first draft, but I ended up drawing it again using a dark colored pencil. As you can see, the illustration wasn't in the center. I am adjusting this now. When I'm transferring it onto watercolor paper, I am using a red color arrays pencil. So I can easily adjust things also because I'm going to work with red and brown. But I also like it when the lines are a little bit darker than the paint I'm going to use, because otherwise I have to redraw in between the layers of paint. I am also using a dark pencil, a brown one. Of course, you can also use a window. You don't have to own a light box. I am happy with this result. Let's move on to the next step. If you own a tablet, you can make a picture of your sketch. We are going to add numbers to the worms. The numbers two underneath the numbers one, and the numbers three are underneath the numbers two, and so on. You can, of course, also use your sketch and draw the numbers directly onto your sketch. Congratulations, this was the hardest part, the planning of your illustration, and now we are going to move on to the fun part we are going to paint. 3. Exploring Colors : For this class, I am choosing two warm colors and one cold color, a brown, a red and a blue. Choose your colors and try them out. See how they mix on your papers. See how they work together, how they make shades, how they blend. For our illustration, we will use the red and the brown when we are finishing the illustration and we are going to paint on top of it, we will use the blue to add some. So when you're painting the negative space, you're painting a whole layer in one mix of color. Before you start, you need to dilute your watercolor with water, so you've got enough of every color of paint. The color I am using for every layer will be in the middle of this flower shape. I'm adding lots of water. Then I'm going to add my brown and my red to the mix to make my first color for my first layer, use some scrap paper to test your colors and to make your mix just the way you want it to be. I'm quite happy with this result, so I think I am going to start. 4. Painting : First, apply some water. Just clean water and apply it all over your illustration. For your first layer, you have to find a very light shade of your color. Apply the color to your wet paper. For the background color, you don't have to work very neatly. The color can be outside of the shape you drew. You can add some extra splashes here and there for extra texture in the background. It's not necessary, but you can experiment with different color combinations. For your next layer, your paper has to be totally dry. You can have a cup of coffee or tea, or in my case, you can also use a hair dryer. Let's find the right color for the second layer. It should be a little bit more dark than the first one. For this one, I will put some more brown into the mix and some more red, a little bit more dark. The mix contains red, brown, and water. The blue is not added to the mix. Let's look at our sketch. Every worm has got a number with this layer. The second layer, we are going to paint everything except for the number one. Make sure you've got enough paint for every layer. You don't want to run out in the middle of painting. Try to work neatly and quick. The paint should not dry out once you are working on a layer. Also, try to not activate the layers underneath the layer you are working on. When your brush touches the paper too much, the layers underneath can dilute again and then you will get spots. Try to be very gently with the brush, a little bit of speed paint here to finish the second layer, let's make sure this layer is totally dry and we are moving on to the third layer. I am using thick watercolor paper, but with all the wetting and the blow drying of the paper, it starts to curl up. That's why I used the tape. Let's look again at our sketch for the third layer we are going to apply this time, we're going to leave out numbers 1.2 Again, I'm going to make my color a little bit darker, putting in some brown and some red. Every layer is going to be a little bit more difficult. Don't worry, take your time. And if you make a mistake, you can easily adjust it or just leave it the way it is. It's not an exact science. If you, for example, paint a layer you shouldn't have painted, nobody will notice. Let's finish this layer. You can already see that the numbers two are a little bit more darker than the number one. Some of the depth is already showing. Make sure this layer is totally dry and let the next layer, this time we are going to leave out numbers three and also numbers 1.2 before we are going to move on to the next layer, make sure you check if you didn't miss any of the small spots. In this next layer, we are going to leave out number four, and of course also numbers 32.1 Make sure this layer is totally dry before you start the next one. Depending on how many layers you have got, you will continue this process until you're done. This is my last layer of paint. You can see I made a slightly darker color than the other ones. And I also skipped apart because you know what to do and you know that when you've got more layers, you have to continue doing this process all over again. And I don't want to make this video boring for you. So this is the last layer. And after this one, we will continue finishing this illustration by adding some color on top of the worms and also adding shadows and lights to it. Let's move on to the next video, where we will learn how to finish this illustration. 5. Adding Shadows : We will add details and shadows to our final illustration. I drew two circles here, and by adding some blue to our mix, I made a beautiful shade. By painting only a piece of this circle, I can make it appear more three dimensional. Here is the scrap paper from the video about color. You can see that I made a beautiful shade using blue. We are going to reproduce this shade by adding blue to our mix of red and brown, just like the circle at the beginning of this video. I am using the shade to make this worm stand out more. Make sure you only use the paint on a side of the worm. This way it will look more three dimensional. Just like working with the negative space, we are going to work in layers. The first group of worms will have a very light shade. The second group of have a slightly darker shade. The third group of worms will have a slightly darker shade than the second group of worms and so on. But be very careful, you should not paint the whole worm. When you are painting the whole worm, then you can lose the effects of the negative space painting. Because remember, we are painting positive space right now for our details. After applying shadow to the last group of worms, I am also making the background a little bit darker. In our next video, we are going to add some details using colored pencil. See you in the next video. 6. Final Touch : In this last video, we will finish our illustration using colored pencils and white quash sharpen your pencils. And let's go. Starting with a brown pencil, I make the background a little bit darker, especially around the worms. It's like a drop shadow. The background should still be showing. So be careful not to color everything. I'm going to redo the line work where it's necessary. And I'm using a red or brown pencil. I also use a piece of paper so I can't smug my artwork. The artwork is almost finished. We are making the lines more clear. We are adding details. Let's add the final touch. White pencil and white cosh with a little bit of water and again, a little bit of speed paint just to finish this beautiful illustration. 7. That's it!: And that's it. I hope you can incorporate this technique in your own illustration practice. Hope to see you next time. Thanks for watching this. Bye bye.