Mission Statement

The Rocky Mountain Society of Botanical Artists is an open and diverse group of artists, collectors and admirers who share a love for the practice and perpetuation of botanical art and illustration with a fond focus on plants in the Rocky Mountain Region.
We encourage and participate in educational outreach, juried and non-juried exhibits, lectures, workshops and regular chapter meetings. The RMSBA is proud to be the very first chapter affiliation of the international organization, the American Society of Botanical Artists.

Sunday, March 25, 2012

A Drawing a Day 25 and a Challenge

Mountain sketches, mixed media, Renee Jorgensen


Is Negative Space a Bad Thing?
Of course not!  When you have a more complex piece, it sometimes makes drawing easier using negative space. That is, outlining the space where things aren't, as opposed to where they are. For example, here is a picture of a charming little succulent garden planted in a shell.



There are a number of roots on the dirt, right in the lower center of the garden (see red boxed area).


If I outline each root, I'll get a tangle of shapes, but my outlines might be unwanted. In the picture below, You can see where I filled in negative spaces, leaving white spaces for the root structures.




You can see the area that used to be white now has some white shapes but the definition comes from finding the negative spaces. Very handy. You might want to consider this technique any time you're dealing with lots of little details. Fun, and it works. It's worth a try! Please send me your images to rmsbartists@gmail.com and share your success. I'll post them here! We have 6 days left in our Drawing a Day challenge. Love to see your work!

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