Perceiving Negative Space: A Positive Way To Strengthen Drawing Skills

1. Introduction: Have you ever wondered if you could draw from observation, but then got intimidated because you really didn't know where to start. I'm a freelance graphic designer, illustrator, and visual artists living in the beautiful province of gibbons. I have a bachelor's degree in art education and have worked for a few years as a photographer. There's always too many projects on my mind. But one thing that never changes is my love for the art of drawing. In this class, we are going to work on our observational drawing skills by taking a specific angles. We are going to talk about negative space. But they are why they're important and how we can first perceive them and then use them to get better at drawing. This class is all about training your perception. I'm really excited to teach about this subject because for me, perceiving negative space changed the way I perceive the world and it transformed my practice as an artist many years ago. If you are intimidated by observational drawing, you are at the right place. We'll set the ideal conditions for your perception skills to grow. This class is for intermediate level. But I think when you need most recent interest in drawing and a wish to work on your skills. I created a class workbook that you can use either on an iPad or as a printed document. For the final project, you will need drawing paper. As a medium. I suggest either graphite pencils, sound walk county pencils, or a black soft pastel, depending on your preference. The project for the cost is a horse portrait drawn from observing a photo to get their keys start by discussing what is negative space, why it's important and how you can use it to simplify drawing. Then we consolidate the knowledge with two exercises. We discussed how space and shapes are in relationship with each other, and how negative space and composition are related. I also give you tools to be successful with the cost projects as we work on it together, a few notions on value and to shading techniques for drawing. Last week, well, look at the importance of evaluating your work and that's it. Let's go. 2. Your Project: Hey everyone, so glad to be spending some time with you today. Today we are working on our observational drawing skills and together we are going to be working on a drawing, more specifically on an eight by 10 " horse portrait. I chose this project for mainly two reasons. First, I'm very passionate about drawing in general, and I'm currently working on an exhibit featuring my horse drawings. While working on the exhibit, I realized I was really always going back to the notion of negative space. And it's sort of click that this would be an awesome way to work on negative space as a means to strengthen perception and composition skills. Second reason is that horses, while being beautiful creatures to which I really have a special attachment, are kind of weird and awkward to draw. And I really want to show you that if you work on your perception, you can draw difficult and weird and complex subjects. We will be working from a photo and there are very specific reasons for that, but we'll discuss them in the following lessons. The steps you will need to take to complete the project or as simple and pretty straightforward. First, we'll explore the concept of negative space, learn the what and the why behind its importance. Then we will put theory to practice with two exercises designed specifically to consolidate your understanding of the concept. Next, we will already be working on your project. After choosing our reference image, we are going to frame your final composition, working with a grid, putting your new knowledge to the test. You are then going to sketch your horses silhouette. Add a few details until you are satisfied to give more realism to your work will explore a few simple shading techniques that you are going to apply to your piece. Lastly, we'll take a moment to self-evaluate, add the last details, and take note of which areas would like to work on in the future. Here's the material you will need. Either an iPad with a note-taking app and the procreate app. Or you can also print the workbook, either the whole thing or the specific pages that you need. Drawing paper for your project, make sure it's a little larger than your final artwork. I suggest you to work in an eight by 10 " final format to make it easier. But of course, you can work bigger or smaller as long as you keep the same ratio overall. For the medium, I suggest either graphite, sound walk county pencil, or a black soft pastel. But if you'd like to try something else, you can just know that we'll be working monochrome and that it would be nice to have some contrast. The mediums I suggest are also quite forgiving in the sense that if there's a line you wish you hadn't drawn, you can change it. And kneaded eraser would also be nice and useful, but not essential in this spirit of learning new skills and sharing them. I would love to see your artworks in the projects gallery. Discussing projects is a great way to learn from each other. And I will absolutely look and calm and everything that is posted there and give feedback if you want me to. Don't hesitate to ask questions either. Alright. Now that you know where we're headed today, I invite you to download the workbook. Everything you need to know about this class is in there. Up next, we'll discuss the concept of negative space. See you there. 3. Negative Space: What And Why?: Let's start things off with the concept of negative space. What is it? Why is it important and how can it be used to help you draw what you see? When I say negative space, what I mean is this space around a subject or the space around an area of interests in an artwork. If you were to look at a painting about an apple on a green background, the space around the apple would be your negative space. Another classic example is the space around a chair. And in-between the rungs. In graphic design. It's this space around your design or in-between the elements. Sometimes it's referred to as whitespace, but it's not always white. Okay, simple enough. But why am I? You ask, is it such a fundamental concept? First, it's always present. There is no forgetting about it, because whatever you do, it's there just like the world is around you. In graphic design, this space will let your design live and breathe, give it balance and importance. If you use it in a clever manner, you can make wonderful things. Have you ever seen the FedEx logo? Pay close attention to it. Do you see it yet? The arrow between the E and the X. We could spend an hour on this, but let's jump to the art side of things. In art, negative space is closely related to composition. Mastering the concept gives you tools to reinforce composition. It will help you create a mood, lead the eye of the viewer, and make the whole thing pleasant and balanced. Actually, it will help you make the work whole. Learning to draw from observation. We can use negative space in a specific way that will help us draw accurately, but also build up our perception skills. Understanding and seeing negative space simplifies the task of drawing from observation because it helps our brains figure out what we're seeing instead of what we think we are seeing. When you see negative space as big shapes, you start being able to draw complex subjects like the foreshortening of fingers or legs, e.g. it is often easier to draw what is in there in order to make a subject appear. Studying negative space works up your visual perception skills. Drawing from observation is closely related to perception. There's an art educator that I admire a lot who's named Betty Edwards, who says that negative spaces are easier to draw because you have no name for these shapes. Your brain has not translated them into a symbol already and will not mix them up. They are just shapes. On a more personal level. Seeing and understanding negative space has changed the way I draw the day I was thought about it, I started analyzing my surroundings like crazy. It's fascinating. I felt like I could see another dimension or something. I also had a teacher in university who encouraged us to paint the negative space first, to activate them and make for a more interesting painting. This was also a game changer. Negative space should not be uninteresting. It's part of the artwork. Now that we have looked at what negative space is and why it's important. Let's take this further to learn how to use it when drawing from observation. See you in the next lesson. 4. Training Your Eyes For Negative Space: First Exercise: Welcome back. In this lesson, we'll start training your eyes to see negative space in action. Let's dive into it right away. They can look at the workbook at page four to clarify things and see how it works in real life. In this photo of a statue against a blue sky, It's pretty easy to find the negative space around the statue because it will be blue. Everything around and the spaces here and between the body and the arm. And also here in between the horse crown. Yes, it's a horse grown. All of this is negative space. Now, imagine if you were to trace these spaces and fill them in, you would be left with a pretty good head start for your observational drawing. You would have a silhouette for your subject with the right proportions. Without having any real knowledge of anatomical proportions. It feels like chipping away at the subject and removing parts around it to make it appear. Let's take this further with this cute little dog over here. Say you were to draw this, you could first chip away at the dog by drawing the space around his head and body. Instead of drawing each part of the dog by itself and trying to make things work. Draw width isn't there as big shapes. And this is where it gets interesting. See the complex space in the ears. Would you know how to draw that? Not really, but not a problem because it's just another negative space. If you focus on it as a shape. The glasses, the nose, same. They are just shapes interlocking with the shapes around them, like a big puzzle. You want to draw the glasses. Don't draw the glasses, draw what's around them. At this point, we need to agree on something. When there is an edge or a line that separates two shapes. In this case the subject and the negative space around it. We need to agree on the fact that this line is a shared edge. And this is important for one reason. If an edge is shared, it means that two shapes are in a relationship. Shapes affect one another. And it also means that if you draw negative space, you are automatically making the positive form, aka your subject, appear. Just keep that in mind for now. I have given you three more images and I suggest that you take a few minutes to analyze them with your new perception notions. You can pause me. I'm not going anywhere. Why don't you take a moment to start analyzing your surroundings? Isn't it fascinating or what? To solidify this new knowledge, we are going to draw negative space directly onto a photograph. You can either work on your tablet or your computer if you like. Or you can print page number six of the workbook if you've printed the whole thing even simpler. Here's a photo of a chair, a classic example. I did not just reinvent the wheel here. What I would like you to try is drawing the negative space around this chair. Like I'll be doing myself. It's like tracing a puzzle, as I mentioned earlier. In this photo, you can also notice the perspective and the object receding in space. But when I'm working with negative space, it doesn't matter as much if your perspective notions aren't fully up-to-date or if they are far back in your mind. Of course, I encourage you to learn about all of it. But for now, if you just focus on these shapes, nothing else matters much. Here's our wrap-up of what we've seen in this lesson. When drawing from observation, you can draw the negative space and it will make your subject appear. Because negative space and positive form share edges. Drawing one makes the other appear. Working like this simplifies the task of drawing complex shapes, and it simplifies dealing with proportion and perspective. In the next lesson, we are building on that to achieve the second exercise in the class. See you there. 5. Training Your Eyes For Negative Space: Second Exercise: Now is the time to try and fly on your own. But before that, let me introduce the reason why we are working from photos and this class. With reason, you might be wondering why, since it's technically a drawing from observation class. First, drawing from a photo is still drawing from observation. You are still drawing what you see with one slight difference when drawing from real life. I mean, for all we know, we might be in the matrix, but that's not the point. We are actually translating what we see in three-dimensions on a 2D surface. This, right, there is one of the biggest challenges in drawing from observation. It's the reason why it's hard to draw foreshortened legs or fingers. It's the reason why we have theory on perspective. It's also the reason why when you watch an artist draw, they will often have one eye closed. What? Yes. Because with both eyes open, we see three-dimensionality. With one eye closed, we don't, and it makes the translation easier when working with pictures, we take away the very challenging task of translating three-dimensionality to a flat surface. Today, I really wanted us to concentrate on perceiving negative space for all the reasons mentioned earlier. So I took care of a few difficulties and advance. Now that this has been discussed, here's another thing. When drawing something, anything, we decide how to frame the subject. This is how we create composition. How is this related to perceiving negative space? Well, remember when we talked about how lines are shared edges and that shapes are in relationship with each other. That's it. If your friend, my subject differently, you are automatically changing the big shapes of the negative space around your subject, therefore, directly affecting composition. Here's an example that I've included in your workbook on page seven. Same subject, different framing, then negative space are different and Effects composition. The point of view that we take changes everything. This is why mastering the concepts of negative space will reinforce composition skills. You may not see how all of this is related right now. But I'm planting seeds in your brain with the hope that they will become beautiful trees with time. But enough theory, let's jump to this second exercise. In your workbook on page eight, I've chosen another chair. In the empty frame next to the image of the chair, draw the negative space around this chair as accurately as possible. You will notice that I have framed the chair in a way that makes the space is quite characteristic to make it easier. Keep in mind that there's no magic trick here. If it's your first time doing this, it probably won't be easy. But practice makes progress. Also keep in mind that this class does not show you how to measure proportions. Know that it's another skill to acquire when you wish to draw from observation. This means this exercise will not be perfect either, and that's fine. I'll be giving you another tool for the last project in order to make up for it. And for now, we are working in the same size from reference to drawing. So as not to get sidetracked by this. Also notice that the floor in the image helps figure out this space. You can divide your negative space using the baseline of the floor. Concentrate on replicating the shapes as accurately as you can. I encourage you to replicate this exercise as many times as you can. I've given you a few images in the workbook, but you can also choose images that you deem appropriate and try it on your own. Remember, it will be easier if your reference and your drawing are the same size. But you could also try to change the size of your drawing. Always keep this same ratio from the reference to the format of your drawing though, or else the proportions will not work. To wrap things up. Here's a look at what we've discussed in this lesson. Drawing from observation can be done from a photo. And this technique simplifies the task of translating a 3D environment to a 2D surface. It's a good place to start. Mastering the concept of negative space will reinforce your composition skills because the format of your work, the way you frame your subject, and then negative spaces around it are all interrelated. To consolidate what we've discussed. We've also drawn negative space from observation to try and our perception. Up next, we are going to decide on a composition for the final project. See you there. 6. Starting Your Project: Format And Grid: Hello back. So glad to see you're still with me, ready to finally take on your project. In this lesson, we'll choose a reference image and frame it to compose our final artwork. Paying attention to the negative space we are creating. When we're done doing that, I will show you how to use a grid to make it easier to see the big shapes. This is the tool I mentioned in the previous lesson. The tool that will help with proportions. Your final project will really be like putting a puzzle together, because when using a grid, you are really subdividing the space, either negative space or positive form. And it gives you a regular spatial reference to keep proportions and check this way. You don't have to measure while drawing. I still encourage you to pursue your learning beyond. But as discussed earlier in this class, it's not our focus. My goal is for you to be successful with your project. And I give you this tool to try. You absolutely don't have to use it if it doesn't work for you. Let's start. I'll choose my image and then show you how I frame it. And then you can do it on your own. I'm using my iPad and Procreate. But you can do this a number of ways, including simply tracing a frame and a grid onto a printed image. The upside of working from a printed image is that if you print it at its real size, it will be even easier to recreate. Note that if you don't want to frame this object yourself, I've pre framed a few images in the workbook, pages 12 to 17, already at the right format with the grid already in place. I've looked at many images and here are the ones that I liked the most. You can choose one of those or you can look up for one of your own. The images I'm giving you are from pexels.com and you are free to use them as reference. I've linked all the references at the end of the workbook. Let's take a look at them for a few seconds. It always helps to choose a subject that you connect with or else you'll get tired of analyzing it. I think the one I would prefer working with for now is this full right here. There will be many challenges with this image, but I think it's perfect to show you how I use negative space as a drawing tool. That's important. This in Procreate and frame it. I will create my art board in an eight by ten format at 300 DPI. It doesn't really matter as I will not be printing this. It's just for reference. Now, let's import the image. Alright. I have what I want right here. Pleasing negative space, a balanced composition. Interesting shapes all in all. Now let's add a grid in the parameters. Go to the Canvas menu. I'm sorry, my procreate is in French. Activate drawing guides and modify the guide. In the grid size tab, we are going to choose a 2 " grid. This means that are a little squares are going to be two-by-two. This is perfect because they are going to align precisely with the horizontal and vertical limits of our formats. Now, you see this little blue dot here. We are going to slide it down one of the corners of the art board, so our grid aligns perfectly with it. You can also play with the opacity and the width of the grid lines to make it more or less visible. Press okay? And you are all set. Remember, you can also print an image, trace your eight by ten for amides directly onto it, and trace your own two-by-two grid on the image. It will work just the same. You can also use one of the images in the workbook. I'm giving you options here to make this project more accessible. If we take a moment to analyze the image and the grid, we can easily see that by dividing the space of our reference, it will be easier to divide the negative space even more. Let's think this area under the fool's head here. Without the grid, we have a bigger section of negative space to deal with. With the grid. We are dealing with smaller sections because we can rely on the grid to create smaller shapes. As your eyes and your brain get more used to perceiving space. And as you learn to measure proportions, the grid becomes less necessary. Now, it's time to take out your drawing paper, your ruler, and your pencil. We are going to draw the eight by ten Fermat on paper. Let's meet at the drawing table. The paper I will be using for this project is Fabriano drawing paper. But any drawing paper will do. When you start drawing, as with anything else, you develop your preferences and you should concentrate on that instead. If you don't have special drawing paper, you can even work with ordinary letter sized printer paper. It will not resist as much, but we are working on skills here. We don't need anything to be perfect. I'll use two H pencils for the format and grid. And I will not be pushing hard. So as not to mark the paper much, I will erase those lines at the end. Here's how I like to draw my own formats. I like to figure out the size of the sheet of paper, find the middle of it, and then draw the final size. From the middle. I need to have 4 " on each side of the vertical line. And from the horizontal middle line, I need 5 " up and down. I tried to align with the size of the sheet to get 90 degrees angles. But if your sheet isn't cut at a right angle, you might have angled problems. Alright? Now for the grid, it is pretty straightforward. I need to mark my frame every 2 " and connect the lines. That was a very technical lesson, but we made it through. If you have questions at any step, do not hesitate to reach out. I'm here to support you and answer any interrogation you may have. Also, don't forget to share your progress in the project gallery. I cannot wait to see what you're up to. Let's wrap things up before we get into the next lesson. Here's what we've done in the last few minutes. We've chosen a reference image and we have framed it. We have also seen how adding a grid to your reference makes it easier to detect negative space and space in general by dividing bigger areas into smaller pieces. We have also seen how to draw a final format to paper and how to draw your grid on your paper. Up. Next, we'll start drawing our subject. See you there. 7. Perceiving The Space And Tracing Your Subject: Welcome back everybody. Glad to see you're still following along. Great job for making it here. In this lesson, we are going to trace the subject of our drawing using our perception of negative space and the grid we have just created as guides for accuracy. At this point. With the exercises that we have done until now, you will probably be good to go, even if you're a little nervous about it. This is normal. I suggest you trace very lightly with your palest pencil and without too much pressure. So you can make adjustments along the way. Grab your reference image, you're drawing paper and your palest pencils. And let's me that the drawing table. Now, there is one optional step that you can do here. If you're unsure where to start. If you like, working directly on your reference, you can trace your subject if you need to analyze things a little before tracing on your drawing paper. Here's what I like to do. I look at my reference image and notice where the negative space is and the big shapes it creates. On my drawing paper. I take a moment to mark where the shapes intersect with my grid. Then I really just have to jump in and start tracing the shapes. The neat thing about having the grid is that at any moment, you can use it to make your life easier by dividing shapes that are too big or more complex. Here's what I mean. See the big space here that starts at the bottom left of my full and goes around, touches on the branch down to its nose. This is going to give me a hard time and I know it. I'm going to use the grid and divide this big shape in smaller sections. Let's trace the bottom part. Now that I have this section, I'll analyze what I just drew and compare it to my reference. I find it easier than comparing huge sections. You can also copy a big shape like this one, for instance, under the horse's head. I'll trace this big shape, but it's not very precise, is it? Now I can go in and take it in smaller sections using the grid as reference and refine it, adjusted until it makes sense. By focusing on drawing the negative space, the positive form of your subject appears by default. Take your time, tweak the silhouette it creates until you are satisfied. And then we're going to meet back at the drawing table and go inside the silhouette to add details. You can pause this video here if you like. I'm not going anywhere. Are we good? Are you done drying your silhouette? Okay, let's move on. Now that we have a silhouette, will go in and see if we can use the same logic of finding big shapes to add to our drawing, still keeping our tracing very light. To me, this step feels like making a map. Look at your reference and look for the edges that you can add, the shapes you can divide to push your drawing a little. Let's take a look at my reference and I like to focus on what is the most striking. I will definitely want to make the legs on my full distinct from one another. By adding these lines here. I will want to add certain lines on the body to the fluffy main. The line on the mouth. Now comes the tricky parts. Nose, eyes, and ears. There's no denying it. They are tricky and weird. But with practice, like anything else, we get better at it. Here's my suggestion. Try seeing these parts not as the parts that I've just named. See them like the rest as big shapes that you will recreate on your drawing paper. It's the secret for accuracy. Zoom in on the nose. What do I see? I see a very dark shape that becomes less dark and that part, and this is what I'm going to trace on my paper. Another difficult part, getting the place and the size right, try your best and use the grid as a reference. Let's try it with the eye. Let's zoom in on my reference to analyze. I don't see an i. I see a big dark shape. I see a small shape that is in fact a highlight. A few dark shapes around here. There you go. Take your time to complete this step, adding as much or as little detail as you like, keeping your lines very pale. The last thing I recommend is to look at the whole thing. And if you feel like your lines are a little disconnected, taking a more global approach and add a few lines to make the base of the drawing a little more solid. Now, let's recap this lesson before moving on to the next. In this lesson, we have perceived negative space using the grid as a guide to trace big shapes on paper. To make the silhouette of our subject appear. We have added some lines and more shapes inside the silhouette. To make em up. We have learned to use the same big shapes logic to add the more complex traits of our subjects and to make it complete. In the next lesson, we'll get creative with shading. See you there. 8. Getting Creative With Shading: In this lesson, we are going to talk about value and see a few methods for shading or drawing in order to add realism to the artwork. Up until now, the class has been quite technical. And I have to say drawing from observation can be tedious. And it's not always creative per se. But as you get more comfortable with it, it does become creative because you will start to interpret what you see and make it your own. Also, drawing or painting from observation, you still have your creative freedom and you will have to use it to decide what to include or not in your drawing or painting. Just because we are drawing from observation does not mean we have to include everything we see in our work. You also have to decide the level of details you wish to add, the style of your drawing, the contrast you want to convey, etc. All of this, the decision-making makes the activity creative. I'd like you to keep that in mind. Because in a few moments, we'll go back to the drawing table and start adding value to our artwork. And we are going to have to make some creative choices along the way. But first, let's introduce the notion of value. Value is the lightness or darkness of an image. It is relative, and in my opinion, much easier to see in black and white. There is a lot of theory behind value. But in this class we are going to focus on value as being lights and shadows in an image. Value adds depth, three-dimensionality, volume. It also affects the mood and composition of an image. In drawing, I find it adds realism. In this spirit of seeing negative space as big shapes. We are going to keep the same principle to perceive lights and shadows as such. There is this neat little trick that one of my teachers gave me at some point to see the areas of lights and shadows better. You can squint your eyes. I can't really tell you why it works, but it does. I've also discovered that in my case, taking off my glasses does the trick. Let's take a look at my reference image. Now, if you squint your eyes, it will help you see the values as big shapes. Here. You can see the lightest area. Then these in the background. On the falls back. You can see here at the top of the image there on the branch that these areas are very dark compared to the rest. Now, if you concentrate on the foal, see the back leg, the neck area, in the eye, the main There are many dark areas. They're in-between. These very light and very dark areas are the mid-tones. You can include as much or as little of these as you like, depending on your taste, your ability to perceive them, or the style you wish to give your drawing. The technical way in which you will go from dark areas to lighter areas is also up to you. This is how I like to tackle this part. I look for the lightest and darkest areas first, and then I decide how I deal with the mid-tone. Note that one technique and drawing consists in starting on a paper that you would have shaded with a median value before beginning to draw. I don't like it much, but it's a possibility. The biggest difference is that when starting on a tone paper, you erase the highlights. When starting on a white paper. Everything is a highlight at the beginning. I also like working in high contrast, and this means I don't deal with midtones much, but this does not have to be your case. So it's good to know. Also note that if you really have trouble detecting the values in your reference, it can help to convert your image to black and white and to adjust the contrast. Just another tool you can use to make things easier while you learn. Now let's go back to the drawing table to place her lights and shadows and to look into a few shading techniques. It will be timed to use your creativity and decide how to translate the different values to your drawing using the same principle of big shapes that we have used from the start of this class. Let's place our lights and shadows onto the drawing. We're still working with very light traits to complete the map. You should mark your lights and shadows in a way that speaks to you and will not confuse you. For the next steps. You don't have to do exactly as I do. This is just a way that speaks to me the most and that I understand the most. Also note that this is a fake version of my drawing and I'm pushing really hard on the pencil so I can show you what I do. But I have another ongoing version of the drawing that I will be working with for the final artwork. Now that this is done, let's look at two shading techniques that you can use to work on your drawing. Note that we are going over these notions quickly. And if you are interested in learning more on the subject, I do have a class on creative line work that has a cool section on shading. You can now take your darker graphite pencils, your soft black pastels, your content pencils, or the medium you chose for your final drawing. Alright, on another piece of paper, try this with me. The first technique is very graphic. It's called hatching and there's also crosshatching. You can see this a lot in printmaking. Here's an example. This image is called peasant with his hands behind his back, created by around brand. It's an etching, but it shows really well the effect you get with hatching and crosshatching using lines and pressure, you create the values and you leave the lighter areas of the paper bear. Hatching is when using parallel lines that are going in the same direction. While crosshatching is drawing cross marks. Try it on your other paper to get the feel of it a little. You can, of course makes the two techniques. Now, let's look at a smoother technique called blending. With this technique, you can go from dark to light smoothly, like in this example. This is part of a drawing I've been working on for an exhibit. Going back to your paper, you can try it. Know that some people use a Tertullian, also called a blending stump to blend their value. But I prefer using a mix of playing with the pressure on my pencil and blending with my fingers. Using a Tertullian horrifies me for some reason and I just can't. You can try it on your own paper to see if it works for you. Instead of a Tertullian, you could also use paper towels. By the way, you don't have to stick to one technique. Do what feels natural for you. You will end up developing your own technique. Most probably. I think mine is a mix of these two. I like working in a graphic expressive way. But sometimes I like to play with this softness of blending, like in this image right here. Time to translate this into your drawing. Remember that you are the one deciding what to draw or not. The range of tones that you wish to include, the techniques you use. The only advice I really wish you to retain for this is to do what feels natural. Here's me working on my final artwork. I've accelerated my process by like 1,000%. And even though I don't like to do that, I wanted to give you an idea of how I work. One thing you can note in my process is that our work in layers. I often mark where my darkest shadows are in the beginning, but I will come back to them later to accentuate them. I also don't have a specific order in which I work, meaning that I go back and forth between the different parts of the drawing. I think that this way of working helps me find a balance in the contrast. By no mean do you have to copy my process? You really have to find out what works for you. And I want to emphasize that what really helps me to achieve a certain level of realism is, as I've mentioned before, to see the elements of the photo as big shapes. And you should not feel like you need to perceive everything right away either. Some parts become clearer to me as I work on my piece. Like the eyes, the nose, and the ears. I add shadows little by little. And there's always a moment when I finally get to where I want it to be. I suggest you practice, practice, practice, until you find that sweet spot. Also note that I don't give much attention to the different textures in this particular drawing. I've said this earlier. You are the one choosing the level of details you wish to convey. You are your own creative director. Towards the end of the process, you can see that I like to add a few graphic lines and adjust the contrast to make things pop. You can try it if you like. But once again, I encourage you to experiment and see what works for you. Alright, last detail, your signature. You worked hard and it should be known. Take all the time you need to work on your drawing. There's no competition as to how fast you should draw, but you should really enjoy the process, at least I hope you do. To conclude this lesson, let's recap. We have learned that value is the relative darkness or lightness in an image. We have also looked at how to see the different tones as big shapes by squinting your eyes a little. We've also reviewed to shading techniques and apply all of this to our drawing projects. See you in the next lesson for the last details of the class project and your self-evaluation. 9. Adding The Last Details And Self-Evaluating: Hello back everyone. Welcome to the last step in today's project. The first thing we're going to do right now is to look at our drawing as a whole and see if we want to add more details, more contrast, adjust the shading and Lidl or draw more expressive lines. Whatever you think your piece is lacking to be complete. Now is the time. Here comes the last step. This is a step that I've added in the last month in my own practice to make a conscious planet working on my skills. I confess that I'm a recovering perfectionist, and this means I'm rarely satisfied with the work I accomplish. At one point, I decided that it's important to be able to look at the work I do, either in design and art or illustration, and see it for what it is. It's easy to look at our work and think that it's all crop for me at least. But I now prefer a nuanced approach in which I can recognize what works well and which areas need working on in the future. So here's my suggestion. Let's look at your drawing and take a specific angle to start. What were you really trying to work on with this exercise? See if you think you achieved that. The rest is kind of a bonus. Also, try to see if you think you did better than the last time you worked on these specific skills, if there was a last time. Now, try to look at the drawing as a whole. What do you think is working well? What can you work on specifically the next time you draw? Another thing? You still can add a rectifier drawing at this step, adjust what you want, and can adjust and make a mental note for the rest for next time. On the other hand, overworking a piece is a thing, it happens. So be mindful of that. You'll know when it happens. Not the end of the world, but frustrating. And nonetheless, with this, we are done. Great job. I'm so glad you made it here. Up next. The conclusion. See you there. 10. Conclusion: Wow, we are done. Good job, everyone. Thank you so, so much for spending this time with me. I feel honored that you chose to invest this time in my class. Here's a little reminder of what we have accomplished today. We have worked on our observational drawing skills by talking about what is negative space, why it's important, and how it can simplify drawing from observation. We've learned to see negative space as big shapes to drive and make a subject appear. We have also tested this knowledge with two exercises. We have discussed how shapes are in relationship with one another, like a puzzle, and how negative space Effects composition. We've also touched upon the importance of the format for the composition of an artwork. We've looked at how to use a grid and composing our final projects to help us perceive the different spaces and shapes more easily to recreate them. We have also gained a few notions on value, picked up a few tricks to perceive the different values of an image, tried out to shading techniques and apply them to our project. Lastly, we have looked at the work we have done, reviewed the areas we thought were well done, and noted the ones we thought could use more work next time. That was a lot. I hope you had fun learning or reviewing all of this. I especially hope you have a better notion of how negative space can work for you when drawing from observation. And I can't wait to know if you're analyzing all of the space around you. Here's one last reminder to publish your process and your drawings in the project gallery. I'd love to see what you were able to accomplish. I will of course, give feedback if you want me to answer any question you may have. On that same note, if you could fees review this class, it would be a great help. I really wish to make each class better than the last. So any constructive criticism is welcome. You can follow me mainly on Instagram for the time being. And you can also follow me here on Skillshare. I would love to connect. Thank you so much once again for taking the time and I will see you in another class.