Cody Thomas

Week 2 Art Experiment: Negative Space

This was a great exercise for me as an artist who is thinking about space – positive and
negative. For most of the week, I spent a lot of time looking at many things around my house
and concentrating on the negative space. When thinking about the negative space in pottery, as
that is my main area of interest, I thought about some vessels, and the negative space creates a
figure-ground perspective.

When I am teaching my class how to observe objects in real life and artwork (2D and 3D), I
inform them that the positive space is the main object itself or the central point/area of
interest. The negative space is the outline of that object and the atmosphere around that
object.

For this experiment, I used pieces of my dinnerware set and other functional pottery I made for
myself. While thinking of how to fill in this negative space, it made me think about perspectives
from our first experiment and how the negative space could change around my pottery as my
view changed from frontal to a more aerial space. I used rice to fill the berry bowl, a candle to
fill the candle holder, and a sand dollar to cover the top of the candle, creating more negative
space. I then added cotton balls around the lips and rims to fill that area's negative space. For
the mug, I used gift tissue to fill the inside. I also used a microfiber rag on the handle. To fill the
negative space around the objects on the bottom, I crinkled up more tissue paper to allow it to
fill underneath the plate and candle holder as well as the background space.
Still Life:

Negative Space Drawing:

Negative Space Sculpture:

BACKGROUND REMOVED