Drawing the negative space

My drawings have their roots in photographs. Early on, I sourced from old family photos, because they were ready and waiting. I was also interested in the almost formal posture in even the most casual of images. But mostly, I used them because I had them.

I still source from my photos. I will often do variations on a theme, noticing how the change of material can alter a mood. In this drawing, I used my iPad to draw the negative space surrounding the building that houses the large telescope at Mt. Wilson Observatory. My photograph is of the starkly white building against one of the bluest skies I've had the pleasure to see. The clean white building sits in sharp contrast to the sky. Believe me when I tell you no photograph can convey the rock hard quality of that sky.

So I approach the drawing in blavpck and white. But I start with the air, the athmosphere tat surrounds the building, the negative space. For me, in the actual moments I was at Mt. Wilson, that athmosphere was solid, as solid as the building. I took that approach with this image. That black, the air, the negative space, is a living thing.

So much good science has taken place here. I come back to this image because it sings to me of the promise of education, science, and the music of the spheres.