The first project of the semester focused on the use of line, shape and positive / negative areas. Students created a central drawing based on a still life made up of fruit, bottles, and other ordinary objects. They added color to key areas to add interest and used line to show direction, create shapes, describe objects, separate, divide, and to bring elements together. There elements of the composition were manipulated according to the Principles of Organization, primarily balance, variety, dominance, and movement in order to personalize each drawing to the individual students' imagination. The next step was to create positive / negative studies of the central drawing and present all three as a whole composition to the class.