Quite often when teaching sculpture to my grade 9 class we
talk about the use of positive and negative spaces and the need to be conscious
of not only the shapes we create, but also the spaces around that shape. A good
little task to emphasise the point in three dimensions involved the students
creating a small freestanding tower in black cardboard.
This is a quick exercise in which the students create an
abstract design within a rectangular template. This is then traced and flipped
to create a symmetrical version of their design. The students need to quickly
identify what are the positive areas (the black card) and what would be cut
away to create the negative spaces. Once this is done they are then able to cut
out the negative areas with a small scalpel knife. The process is repeated with
a second piece of card and slots are added to enable the two pieces of card to
stand without using glue.
While each sculpture in this exercise stands around 20cm it
would be interesting to build larger scale versions, as in the end they are
quite interesting forms. The use of symmetry and repetition combined with
positive and negative shape are certainly effective. Something that is
recognized by quite a few contemporary artists and now also by my young group
of grade 9 sculptors.
