6th Grade Notan Collage

Notan: a Japanese word describing the visual interaction between dark and light positive and negative shapes.

6th graders create Notan collages to explore the concepts of positive space, negative space, and symmetry. The project is very challenging for many students at first, so we create practice collages on scrap paper. When they "pass" their practice compositions, they graduate to a 6" black square!

The rules:

-draw a shape hugging each edge of the square. The shape must begin AND end on the same edge.

-to make full use of positive/negative space, shapes should penetrate to the center of the square. Shallow shapes will not break up the space.

-once initial shapes are cut out, create smaller shapes within them if you can (and repeat this step).