Positive and negative space: silhouettes in mixed media

It ‘s very easy to identify the positive space of an image (that occupied by the subject), and at the same time identify the negative space (the one occupied by the background). But what happens if we try to get a positive space by painting the negative space? With the students of a class in Grade 8 we have prepared a collage colored surface and from this background we have “extracted” the figure, by painting the background around the figure with white tempera. The effect is of a cutout in reverse, and it is very effective to understand the importance of negative space, without which there would be no figure!