Instructional PowerPoint
for the
Positive and Negative Space and the Plants
of the Wildflower Wayside Shrine Trial
Studio Lesson Plan
By Karla Respress, Art Teacher
Avon Park High School, Avon Park, FL
Introduction to the Assignment
• In this studio assignment you will learn:
– how to design an artwork based on
your drawings and photographs
• In this studio assignment you will gain
experience in:
– creating good compositions.
– working with contour lines.
– working with negative and positive
spaces as a design element.
– controlling art materials.
Step I: Gathering Reference Material
• On your visit to the Wildflower Wayside Shrine Trail you will need to
obtain reference material for your studio assignment.
• When you return to the classroom, you will use your reference material to
create three drawings of plants found on the trail.
• Your reference material may include:
• your sketches done in your sketchbook
while on the trail,
• your drawings from ‘Trees in the Scrub
Handout’ and ‘Leaves in the Scrub
Download’ completed on the trail, and
• your photographs taken while on the trail.
(You may wish to slide a piece of white paper
behind the plant you are photographing to
block out the background and see the
contours of the plant better).
Step 2, 3, and 4: Composing the Design
• On the 10”x10” paper, use a ruler and a pencil to lightly draw
1/2 inch border around the edge of the paper .
• Next, lightly draw two vertical lines that divide the space
evenly into three vertical sections, each section will measure
3”x9”.
•
From your reference material on the trail, lightly draw a
contour line of one of your plants in each section. ‘Stretch’
the image so that if fills the section and have the stems and
leaves of the plant ‘touch’ the sides of the section whenever
possible. Focus on good composition and quality of contour
line. For additional reference material, you may look at the
‘The Plants’ section of the Wildflower Wayside Shrine Trail
Website.
Step 5, 6, 7, and 8: Labeling the Positive and
Negative Spaces
• You will now turn their contour line drawings into a design that
emphasizes positive and negative space.
• In the first section, lightly label the negative space ‘b’ for black.
• In the second (middle) section lightly label the positive space ‘b’ for
black.
• In the third section lightly label the negative space ‘b’ for black.
Step 9: Rendering the Design
• Now you are to use the illustration
pens/tempera/India or sumi ink to fill in the
spaces labeled ‘b’.
– You may want to erase the ‘b’ as you
cover the space so that there is no
chance of it showing through.
– Smaller more compact spaces should
be filled in with the fine tipped
pens/brushes and the larger
pens/brushes used to fill in the larger
spaces.
– You may want to run pen/brush lines
vertical or horizontal instead of in a
circular motion.
– Right hand students to render from the
upper left to lower right of the paper
and left hand students to work from the
upper right to lower left of the to
prevent smearing of the pen/ink.
Step 10: Clean-up
• After artwork is dry, look over the design and erase any visible pencil lines.