A Wee Study in Negative Space

Did another barn drawing yesterday, but I'm trying some new things.  One is vertical format with some cropping of my photo that I took of the barn.  The size is much smaller (only 4x6 inches for the drawing on a 6x8 sheet of paper) and I was only doing some sample studies but the result turned out better than I expected.

I had a photo of a barn with a stand of trees behind it but I was 1) not sure how to draw it and 2) I wanted the trees to stand out to balance the image of the barn.

So I did a test drawing of the trees on the left using negative drawing (aka, draw everyone BUT what you wanted to draw).  I wanted to show the light / shadows through the trees but in a way to make the trees stand out.  And it worked.

I then did the complete drawing on the right to see how it looked in a full drawing with the barn.  I thought it turned out really well.  Just as I don't show the complete trees, I also don't show the complete barn.

Well, that's my 2-cents for today.  Just sharing something new and showing others my process.

Enjoy.