A unit on Optical Art is always a big hit with 5th graders. I love it because non-representational art is fun to look at not too intimidating to make, so students who are not that skilled at drawing often surprise themselves by creating a wonderful piece. For this project, students studyied the life and work of Bridget Riley. I chose her because:
1) Students are not too familiar with women artists (and they should be!)
2) Her work is mostly composed of abstract line compositions and the elements of art are very easily identifiable
3) She was an art teacher too ;-)
On the first lesson we saw some cool optical illusions and defined the term. The next day we saw Bridget´s work and students were handed black construction paper and colored chalk to create similar composition —basically, parallel curved lines to create the illusion of movement. A very basic assignment with very different results. Here are some of them:
Then we took it a step further by working with shapes and complementary colors to make it pop out more. Like these:
Finally, the best part is when students go outside the box and apply what they learned to create completely original compositions, such as these:
We are currenlty woking on some Victor Vasarely checkerboard radials. Will post as soon as they´re finished, i´m sure they´ll be just as awesome :-)
Hello Miss Ambar.,, i Could not hold myself from sending you these few words. i am an art teacher too and the funniest thing is that my name is Ambareen!! i love your children works,, lots of creativity in them!!
ReplyDeleteWish you good luck in future.
regards
Ambareen