This is a famous example of a figure-ground relationship called the Rubin Vase. What do you see? A vase… but look another way and see the outlines of the edges – the negative space – become the shape of two people facing each other. Now, Escher’s work can be tricky… His tessellations use positive & negative space interchangeably so let’s look at some simpler examples of this. Here we see a heart shape created in the negative space between our hands Negative space is the area around it – the backGROUND. Positive space is usually the main subject or shape in the image – the figure (have students make a heart shape with their two hands – fingers curled, thumbs pointed down, two sides together) In these illustrations Escher is playing with the POSITIVE & NEGATIVE SPACE or figure-ground relationship in the images. The images changes based on what you focus on. Here you see birds in the red areas and fish in the light areas, but they fit together seamlessly.Īnd in this one you see dark horsemen facing to the right and light horsemen facing the left. Each one fits perfectly in the spaces around the others like puzzle pieces. Other illustrations he did are called tessellations – and you can see a piece of one in this reptile drawing. Tessellations are like tiles, fitting into one another without gaps or overlap. There’s one very common form of tessellation that you are all probably familiar with – Puzzle pieces. Each piece fits together without leaving any empty space. REPTILES: He’s combined 2-D flat space of the drawing with 3-D life-like space all in one imageĮscher’s drawings trick your eyes and you can study them for a long time trying to puzzle out how he drew it. RELATIVITY: Here it looks like gravity doesn’t matter! People move in all directions Here are a few famous examples of his workĭRAWING HANDS: Almost looks like a photograph! He drew in a very realistic style. 1972 Dutch Graphic DesignerĪs a child he actually *failed* second grade BUT he excelled at drawing but he was very interested in math and geometry in his art. The principle is very simple, and so there is not a great deal to discuss, but the practice of seeing negative space is absolutely crucial, and every time you come to draw, look at ways in which you can utilise it, be it the gap between your pet dog's legs, the space between branches of a tree, or the area that defines the profile of a face (a "half" vase).Today we are going to talk about positive & negative space in art, but first I’ll introduce you to the work of an artist named Maurits Cornelis Escher By using the abstractness of negative space, the brain is less likely to interpret an object as it thinks it should be and the all important right-side of the brain can take the helm. With practice it becomes fairly easy to jump between positive and negative space to better relate curves and lines to one another, and more accurately capture those all important angles that can so often distort and kill the realism of a drawing or sketch. Try the same sketch, but now observe the ‘negative’ space – i.e. As an example try sketching your hand simply by following the contours of the fingers with your eye. When drawing, it becomes a very useful device for line placement. In this example the eye is capable of discerning two faces or a vase, but not both simultaneously. There is every chance you will have seen this somewhere before. The best known example for demonstrating this principle is the vase/face illustration. Negative space is a very positive means for relating different parts of a drawing.
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