Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Fourth Element of Art by Texas Artist Laurie Pace

Line Shape Form Space


Frank Lloyd Wright said:     "Space is the Breath of Art."


By definition:  Space is an element of art; space refers to distances or areas around, between or within components of a piece. Space can be positive (white or light) or negative (black or dark), open or closed, shallow or deep and two-dimensional or three-dimensional. Sometimes space isn't actually within a piece, but the illusion of it is.

With little ones we always have donut day when I teach space...but we cannot do that over the internet.  So I took up my pencil and looked around the studio. I spotted first one of my stools in the studio... so I quickly shaded in the space around it.  Then the coffee cup holding my hot tea.... and then just a jack that was sitting on the table. (More of my work further down in the blog.)



So how can you turn this into art that it works in a composition?
Here is an example by M C Esher. 




"Sky and Water I"  is a woodcut print by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher first printed in June 1938. The basis of this print is a regular division of the plane consisting of birds and fish.  Can you see how he took the top duck and then began developing the space around it to turn it into fish?    You can click the drawing to read more in Wikipedia.

Here is one more:


Regular Division of the Plane is a series of drawings by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher which began in 1936.  This was from Wikipedia.  
Click the drawing to connect.



When I taught seventh grade art, we studied Escher and the students had to design something similar using outside space from one object evolving into another one.

Here is the one I did for the sample lesson. I took caterpillars and made them into butterflies.



Close up of the work. It was not completed as I wanted them to design and use their space in their own way. I rarely finished a project as I wanted them to see in in progress so they knew where it was and how it came to be, yet far enough along to see where it was going.





What can you do this week to work on 'space'? If you want to use paint,  I discovered this blog with a wonderful lesson on negative space for those of you with watercolors.  Click here.  Pat Howard is the teacher in this blog and she has some wonderful ideas and lessons... this would be one I would recommend to follow as I plod forward!


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