How Do You Handle Negative Space?

This thread invites constructive comments on dealing with negative space. Negative space, I am here defining conventionally, is the space not containing the object depicted in a picture. The existence of negative space presupposes that a figure of some sort is being depicted, either in realist, expressionist or some other way. Negative space can be positive if it is strong and active compositionally. Or it can be neutral if it is quiet and recessive.

(The best way to keep this an informative thread is to ignore people trying to turn it into another flame war or diatribe against 'modern' art.)

If you have ever dealt with this problem or received any useful advice from school or elsewhere, your comments would be welcome.

says...

Watercolorists are probably the most familiar with the treatment of it. It's something that has to be dealt with from the outset in a WC painting. For example - you begin by painting the 'spaces' between the tree trunks in a forest of trees. You leave the actual trunks of the trees until later. Since I painted for years before ever hearing the term, I dealt with it intuitively. OTOH, had I begun painting abstractly, instead of realistically, perhaps I'd have had an earlier 'enlightenment' than I did.

Wear gloves. Negative space is for people who can't handle the positive kind.

Tired of Modern Art? See-

I can show you how to deal with negitive space. This is the yang and yin of art. The tao of art. Please email me and let me help you.

Tired of Modern Art? See-

Good references, although I am surprised to see Tiepolo among them since he used so much sky.

Really there is no negative space in a picture. It is all positive space. The problem is, if the picture depicts a thing, like a tree, what form will the space around it take. Extending the lines of the figure, so the space around it responds to it, rather that clashing with it, or being irrelevant to it, is an approach worth considering.

Since you're not interested in helping anyone do either, why no try coping with not wasting my time anymore?

Why do you want to be e-mailed? Why can't you make your contribution here?

After that, get a twenty ton block of marble and try to chip away everything that doesn't look like Michaelangelo's David, without considering negative space. See how far you get.

I'm thinking more of his drawings, as with the others. Tiepolo was a pro at engaging negative space with line and wash. Rembrandt was too, by the way if you want another. Bernard Chaet's old book on drawing is an excellent reference if you can get ahold of one.