Op Art Eggs
I've seen this project around quite a bit lately, so I just had to give it a try. Of course, I did give it an Art Fairy tweak or two.
Instead of using the traditional sphere shape, we used an egg in honor of Easter.
This was also done in two pieces. The eggs were done on a separate paper, cut out and then attached.
They were given a cardstock egg shape templates to draw the eggs.
To draw the grid on the eggs, I had the students draw a slightly curved line down the center of the egg creating two sections. they drew another curved line in in the center of each new section, creating four sections. I told them to think of the longitude lines they would see on a globe. We repeated this process for the horizontal or latitudinal lines.
The eggs were then colored with watercolor pencil, water was added using Q-tips, and lastly cut out.
Because of time constraints, students were given a grid that was premade on the computer and printed onto cardstock. Again we used watercolor pencils for the grid.
We discussed a bit of color theory and looked at the color wheel. We talked about complimentary colors and how primary colors are mixed to create secondary colors. We also discussed how they complimentary colors are always composed of one warm and one cool color.
Students were instructed to choose one warm and one cool color to complete the grid patterns and hopefully create
a bit of "chromatic tension".
The eggs were then attached using rolled up pieces of tape.
Gluing would probably be better, but tape allowed us to move ahead without waiting for it to dry. The eggs were lightly shaded at the edges with vine charcoal. White highlight was added to the center of the eggs with chalk pastel.
Before we started our project we watched this little video on You Tube about the history of Optical Art. It is actually about Pop and Op Art but is nicely split in two sections right in the middle around the 5 minute mark. Several of the pop art images were more than I was willing to explain to my elementary level students so we skipped ahead and stopped early on the video. We also watched this
video slide show of Op Art by Victor Vasarely.
Next time I try this project, I'd like to try adding a basket as well and see how that turns out. Can you think of any other ways to modify this project to fit what you're currently working on? I'd love to hear your ideas...
Stay tuned Monday for a special Versatile Blogger Awards Post!
