Vocabulary
Figure and Ground: the perceptual tendency to divide visual patterns into two kinds of shapes with the figure(s) appearing to be on top of, and surrounded by the ground.
Positive Shape: refers to a figure.
Negative Shape: refers to a shape that is part of the ground.
Closed Shape: contain no (or few) negative shapes.
Open Shape: allows negative shapes to penetrate.
Shape Constancy: the tendency to see a shape as unchanging, regardless of the angle at which you see it.
Foreshortening: making the depiction of an object appear three dimensional by "shortening the depth dimension."
Size Constancy: the tendency to see the size of an object as unchanged, regardless of the distance between the viewer and the object.
Organic Shapes: have irregular edges.
Geometric Shapes: have regular edges, such as squares, triangles, circles, etcetera.
Background
Notes
Diagnosed with abdominal cancer, Matisse underwent surgery that left him chair and bed bound. Painting and sculpting became a challenge, so he began creating cut paper collages, or decoupage. He would cut sheets of paper into shapes of varying colors and sizes, and arranged them to form lively compositions.
Aerial perspective: The colours of the object also become less saturated and shift towards the background colour, which is usually blue, but under some conditions may be some other colour (for example, at sunrise or sunset distant colours may shift towards red).
Diffuse sky radiation: The sunlit sky is blue because air scatters short-wavelength light more than longer wavelengths. Since blue light is at the short-wavelength end of the visible spectrum, it is more strongly scattered in the atmosphere than long-wavelength red light. The result is that when looking toward parts of the sky other than the sun, human eye perceives them to be blue.
Steps
Next, students cut their shapes out close together so the paper isn’t wasted
Then, students draw shapes on the colored paper with pencils and cut them out.
Finally, students arrange the cut out shapes on a large piece paper. When satisfied with the placement, glue the shapes in place with a glue stick.