Figure/Ground relationships

I had another rough night last night. But I think I am on the upswing from this cold (I hope so!). Here are some pictures of the kids artwork from yesterday which I managed to hang up this morning. We talked about figure/ground (positive/negative space) relationships. They did two exercises working with black and white.


This was one with black and white pattern strips using white strips on black paper and black strips on white paper. Can you tell which is which? It certainly echoes the stair railing. I hope they don't think they are in a prison or in a zoo looking at zebras.

The other exercise was called the expanding square. They started with a white square and cut shapes from the edges. Then they would flip the shape out and expand from there.

Both of these exercises came from the book called "Notan: The dark and light principles" (something like that). It was a book Nancy Crow had recommended to someone in our workshop and I took note and wrote it down and eventually ordered it.