Sometimes, when you work on a project for too long, it starts to look like a mass of craziness. You heave an internal sigh whenever you look at the thing and hope to God that it passes for something not hideous. That, my friends, is what happened to me with my negative space note card project.
Negative space, defined to us Basic Drawing students as “the spaces around an object,” is hard to see if you’re not looking for it. Shown above in its final form, the assignment was to isolate negative space, draw 100 note cards of it, and then paint in a colored ink around the negative space you drew. But, in this pursuit of exalting negative space, many mishaps may arise.
The first one was that we were supposed to isolate negative space rather than draw the entire area around an object; that means that what you get are non-distinct shapes rather than something that looks like, say, a necklace or something. I had already finished 10 note cards by the time I knew this.
My second mistake was underestimating the drawing time it takes to make 100 cards. I spent a 2 hours during the week and 5 hours at the Met on Saturday working on drawing those cards – it catches up with you if you don’t plan ahead!
Finally, my third mistake was thinking that taping and painting was going to be the quickest part. While it took 3 hours less time than drawing the cards, a few issues arose. I couldn’t get the studio door lock to open. My tape ran out. I didn’t bring any music. My brush skills make me cringe… but, after 4 hours in the studio, this piece was finished.
Looking at it now, I think the whole looks much better than the sum of its parts. It is a work of art when looked at not as a laborious process of 11 total man hours, but as a piece that I myself made from start to finish. Overall, I am glad that all the individual mistakes did not hinder this project’s outcome – but I am mostly glad that it is now finished for good!
Take a look at further art and drawings that I have created.