Dawn Hunter's South Carolina Sunshine
FOUNDATIONS: ARTS 103
NEGATIVE POSITIVE SPACE
by Dawn Hunter, Project Author
and ARTS 103 Course Director
“If two objects are close together they define the space in between.”
Visual Perception and Visual Editing: Students investigate spatial perception and abstraction by creating high-contrast black-and-white drawings from direct observation of still-life objects. Through critical interpretation and compositional organization, they develop complex arrangements that explore how positive and negative space define one another. The resulting works integrate principles of fusion, closure, and containment, reinforcing the essential relationship between observation, structure, and the foundational elements of art and design.
In this section: Negative/Positive Space Homework, Student example demonstrating the investigation of figure-ground relationships through direct observation. Working in black and white, the student reduces still-life objects and the spaces surrounding them into interconnected positive and negative shapes. The two compositions explore how changes in viewpoint, cropping, and spatial relationships transform the perception of the same visual problem.
Continued, Negative/Positive In-Class Work:
The Negative/Positive In-Class Work introduces students to the relationship between positive and negative space through direct observation of a still life. Working in stark black and white, students move away from describing individual objects through outlines and instead perceive the composition as an interconnected arrangement of shapes. The first drawing shows a still life as one big positive shape surrounded by empty negative space. On the other hand, the second drawing does something different - it uses a technique called figure-ground reversal. This means students have to discern which shapes best "describe" or "define" space around or within the objects. The must analyze, perceive (find) and draw the negative spaces within or surrounding the still life objects.
Why is learning Negative and Positive Space Important?
Through studying this short example, students will learn how our brains join together individual parts to make sense of what they see. They will study composition in more detail, and in particular learn about the Gestalt principles of organizing parts to make a whole. The student imagines the edges between the black and white areas and uses cropping, overlap, negative space, cast shadows and the edges of the paper as key elements within the composition. In recognizing these forms, students realize how many shapes are hiding within a work to create unity, balance, depth, movement and a hierarchy.
Negative/Positive In-Class Work. Three student examples exploring figure-ground relationships through direct observation of a classroom still life. Working in India ink on 18 × 24-inch paper, students translate observed objects and the spaces between and around them into high-contrast black-and-white shapes. From left to right, the compositions demonstrate different approaches to cropping, containment, closure, overlap, and the organization of positive and negative space, revealing how changes in perception and visual editing can transform the same still life into distinctly different compositions.
Applying Negative and Positive Space
The drawings also generate visual information that can be revisited and transformed in subsequent projects within the larger curriculum of ARTS 103. The initial investigation of positive and negative space is gradually transformed into a source of abstract planar forms by subsequent problems. Students understand that the visual information generated by a particular problem can be extracted, reconsidered and re-created in response to a new problem. This recursive process prepares students for the transition from perceptual observation to abstraction in the Planar Form projects, the assignment immediately following the Negative and Positive assignment. Learning is carried forward, transformed and applied in new ways throughout the Foundations program.
Negative/Positive Homework. Student examples exploring positive and negative space through two pictorial windows within a single composition. Observed objects are simplified into selective black-and-white shapes, allowing subjects to remain recognizable without conventional outlines or descriptive detail while emphasizing implied edges, figure-ground relationships, and the interaction between the individual windows and the larger page.
Negative/Positive Homework
Building on the in-class investigation of positive and negative space, the Negative/Positive Homework asks students to apply the same perceptual and visual-editing strategies with greater independence. Students select their own still life and develop three thumbnail studies before creating a final composition containing two or three pictorial “windows.” Within each window, observed objects are reduced to interconnected black-and-white shapes, encouraging students to consider figure-ground relationships, grouping, containment, closure, proximity, and the active role of the composition’s edges.
Negative/Positive Homework. Student example combining three pictorial windows within a single composition. Each window explores a different figure-ground relationship while repetition of black and white shapes creates visual unity across the page.
The introduction of multiple windows expands the problem from observing and simplifying a still life to organizing relationships across an entire page. In this homework students see how different compositions relate to each other and to the page as a whole. Additionally, there is a relationship between closure and containment. For example, shapes and spaces "continue" and their proximity changes within the relational whole from one window pictorial window to the next. Thus how one crops, and balances forms or utilizes implied lines and edges can create unity and movement within a composition. These are all points that students learned about through the in-class drawings, and now they have to reapply that knowledge to solve a more complex
The Assignment Sheet
Click on the assignment for the full page to pop-up!
Conclusion
Contrast of Hue explores how color can continue to support visual investigation once initial forms have been generated. By further analyzing how different hues change in relation to each other and then using those relationships in a final composition based on preliminary studies, students discover that color can function as an active component of form as opposed to simply being applied to it. Through the process of experimentation, repetition and refinement, students are able to determine how color can establish emphasis, movement, and relationships within space and ultimately how color can affect the overall perception of a work of art. These new ways of perceiving, thinking, and creating with art will serve as the foundation for continued exploration of color as a dynamic visual language that can be revisited, modified and applied in a variety of new situations.
Negative/Positive Homework. Student example using two pictorial windows to investigate figure-ground relationships, containment, closure, and compositional unity. Forms extend beyond and between the windows, encouraging the viewer to perceive the black and white shapes as parts of a larger visual whole.