Op Art

My 5th grade enjoyed looking at and creating Optical Illusion Art.  We first looked at the art of Bridget Riley.  I loved this project because it was so fun, but also because it introduced basic shading skills to my younger students.  We used black sharpie first on the circles to make a checker board pattern, then on the background sections doing every other one.  We left shading with colored pencil for last.

Before using the colored pencils, we discussed how the parts that are closer are lighter, and the parts farther away are darker.  I demonstrated using various pressures to create lights and darks.  We also talked about if the sections were just flat like the black and not shaded, the optical illusion wouldn't work.  I let students choose 1 color for the circle/spheres, and 2 colors for the background.

Most of my students finished without any  struggle for time, but with Christmas break fast approaching, I had a few who struggled because they  had been sick or are slower than most.  I believe we took 4 weeks to do this project.

These are just a few of the best results: