SPACE
•Space=distance or area between, around, above,
below, and within things
•There are several different ways space is used in
art composition. These are:
Positive space
Negative space
Two-dimensional space
Three-dimensional space
3-Dimensional
•3-dimensional art deals with space naturally (ex. Your wire sculpture)
•Has width, height, and depth
•A free standing object
•Can add or subtract to form
2-Dimensional
• 2-dimensional art can be created to look like it
deals with space and is 3-dimensional
• Techniques to create depth include:
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Overlapping
Size
Focus
Placement
Intensity and Value
Linear Perspective
Overlapping=placing shapes over
others
Size=making distant shapes
smaller than closer ones
Andrew Wyeth’s CHRISTINA’S WORLD
Focus=adding more detail to closer objects, less detail to distant objects
Placement=placing distant objects higher up in the picture, closer ones lower down
Edward Hopper’s THE NIGHT WINDOW
Intensity and Value=using colors that are lower in intensity and lighter in value
for objects in the distance
Linear perspective=slanting lines of buildings and other objects so they seem
to come together in the distance
Class Exercise
POSITIVE SPACE
• Positive space is the
"occupied" areas in a
work of art that is filled
with something such as,
lines, colors and shapes.
• It is the primary subject
matter of a painting; the
animals, plants, building,
mountain, vase, people,
etc., that forms your areaof-interest.
NEGATIVE SPACE
• Negative space (a.k.a.
whitespace in page
layout), is the
unoccupied areas that
surround the subject
matter.
• It is defined by the
edges of the positive
space it surrounds.
M. C. Escher
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One of the world’s most famous graphic artist
Master of using positive and negative space
He worked with architecture, perspective, and space
In most all of his work he filled every space on the page
Known mostly for his mathematical prints called tessellations
• Tessellations are designs featuring animals, birds, plants,
shapes etc, which can fill the page, without over-lapping, to
form a pattern. It's the simplest kind of jigsaw puzzle: all the
pieces look alike!