Negative Spaces

 When you go to art school the teachers really like talking about negative space. It's a biggie. And rightly so. If an artist is aware of negative space--the space around the subject--then he's more likely to create an interesting composition. Kids and grownups alike tend to put their subject matter smack in the middle of the drawing or painting and call it a day.

I came across the designs of Florent Bodart on Threadless, a really wonderful website where designers and artists can submit designs for t-shirts or vote for other designs that have been submitted. The winning designs are sold on shirts and the artists get a percentage of the fee.

Florent's work is bold and delicate at the same time. He works with a variety of styles but the one that grabbed me was his animals. They are drawn simply or silhouetted against black. Then he applies lines of patterns to fill the animal's shape.

Florent Bodart rocks his negative space!

What a great opportunity to teach the kids about using negative space to help the composition.

VOILA! Merci, Florent!

My apologies to my students, I seem to have only saved one photo from last week. Lucky for me it is a fantastic one! Congrats to the artist!