Skeleton Drawings

These skeletons started as a practice in drawing positive and negative space. Students had to carefully examine the spaces in between (the negative space) as well as the bones (the positive space). After two classes, students began to add detail and value to the bones. To fill in the background space, I demonstrated how to use watercolor paints for a crayon resist. I let the artists decide how they wanted to paint the background. This is a great drawing project to teach the principles of positive and negative space as well as value and color contrast.

Notan Collage

Notan is an arrangement of light and dark that creates an impression of beauty. Notan is a popular form of collage in Japan. Students focused on two art principles for this project- shape and space. Students were allowed to work with either realistic or abstract shapes when creating their collage. Notan collages are so unique and beautiful because they focus on a play of positive and negative space that create interesting shapes. We overlapped several different colors to create an even more dynamic and layered design.