I love painting negatively.  I have shown below on that was painted entirely by painting that way.  It is like painting the donut hole and around the donut leaving the donut as the background colour.  Here is another explanation.

The term negative space means background space. It's called negative space to distinguish it from the positive subject matter that occupies the center of interest. ...The term negative may confuse some readers because it implies a lack of importance. Yet shapes in the negative area have distinctive characteristics of their own, equal in importance to shapes in other areas."


-- David Friend,

This painting has a poured background so you have different colours int he background.  Mixing darker colours I "created" the lilies.  Try it, it is lots of fun!

Now this is true negative painting....I just created daisies by painting around them. This is very loose for me, but fun to do now and again.

This is a demonstration of negative painting. All of the leaves in the background was done that way. I particualrly enjoy this work.