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!

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Delaware Days

This week we have been learning about Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emanuel Leutze.You can learn more about the artist and the painting at Artist of the Week.
Here is the project. If you don't feel like doing the project, just feel free to print out the black line as a coloring page.

You can click on any of these to make them larger. Below are PDF files. The first is step by step directions and the second is a completed black line drawing that you may feel free to use as a coloring page.
How to draw George Washington

Coloring Page

Here are some more examples from my students. I think they all did an amazing job!

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Night Rider

Our third week of American Art History brought us to the birth of our nation. Now we know that this painting was actually done in the 20th century and the poem on which it was based was written in the 19th century, but the event itself occurred in the 18th century. For my historical purposes, I focused on the event itself. Based on the event and the painting itself, I created a criteria based lesson.

I particularly enjoy creating criteria based lessons for two reasons.

1.) The finished pieces tend to be more creative as I encourage artists to take the elements and mix them up and juxtapose them.
2.) Kids learn to really look at the details of a piece of art or artist's style, internalize it, and hence don't easily forget it.

First we discussed the artist(Grant Wood)and what is intentions really were behind this piece as well as discussing some of his more famous pieces(American Gothic) and influences.(You can learn more about him here and here)

Then we looked at the painting itself and tried to draw out every element and detail we could. For younger students, keep the elements really basic, but encourage them to really look too. Young eyes often catch very small details we adults miss.

After we did this we came up with this list of criteria that our artwork should have.
Once the minimum criteria was achieved they could add as many or as few details as they wished. They were to begin in pencil and then outline in black sharpie and color in oil pastel.

The picture must show...

1. An outdoor scene at night.
2. One very tall building with a steeple.
3. 11 more houses of varying size some of which must be arranged in a circle or oval.
4. At least 17 lighted windows.
5. A horse with a rider(this could be a rocking horse too)
6. Nine other people in the picture.
7. Trees of varying sizes and at least 4 different shapes.
8. A winding hilly road with a bridge...
9. That crosses a winding hilly river or stream.
10.The light source coming from the right and casting shadows to the left of the picture.

The kids spent a great deal of time on the drawing of their pictures and weren't able to get to the coloring, but even so these pieces are pretty impressive.

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