OP ART

Op Art Part 1

When something plays tricks on your eyes it is called an Optical Illusion. Op Art is artwork that plays tricks on our eyes.

Op Art was an art movement which began in the 1960s. It was a time when artists were very interested in the idea of creating movement on a two dimensional surface by tricking the eye with a series of optical illusions.

“Op” for “Optical Illusion”

“The birth of Op Art began officially with an article in Time Magazine. In 1964, Time Magazine published an article featuring an art movement involving optical illusions. Since the artists focused on eye manipulation, Time Magazine coined this new movement “Op Art”.”

~Source Modern Masterworks

Artist M.C. Escher is famous for having created lots of different kinds of Op Art.

Bridget Riley is famous for creating Op Art that looks like it is moving. Sometimes it hurts your eyes to look at it for too long.

What to do:

Find out more about Op Art! Google some of the artists below and click on the images button to see more pictures by them. Save pictures of your two favorite optical illusions. Post them to our Teams class chat for everyone to see and tell us why you think they are so cool! Please post by Wednesday night. 

Important Artists:

• Riley, Bridget
• Stella, Frank
• Albers, Josef
• Poons, Lawrence
• Noland, Kenneth
• Vasarely, Victor
• Anuszkiewicz, Richard

Op Art Part 2

What You Need:

• white paper
• Pencil
• Something to shade or colour your picture with - crayon, markers, pencil crayons, pen, pencils etc.

What To Do:

Start by drawing a gently curved line across the paper.  Think rolling hill… not roller coaster!

Add 9 dots across the line.

They should be different lengths apart.

You need a dot close to the edges of your paper.

Start connecting the dots with bumps.

The lines from the dots close to the edge will go off the edge of the paper to an imaginary dot.

The lines will eventually go off the top and bottom of the paper .

Fill the whole paper.

Pick a group of colors you feel work well together (2 or 3).

Using pencils or colours, fill in the spaces. Press harder in the corners. As you get near the top of each bump, press lighter and lighter.

Continue until the work is complete and then share a picture to our Teams chat by Friday!

Examples used with the permission of Mrs. Brown of Mrs. Brown’s Art.

Crepe Painting

For these we took crepe and tissue paper and ripped it into tiny pieces. I showed the kids many images of landscape and either let them choose one they liked or provided them with an image which was graphite transferred onto water colour paper before their arrival the next day. on day 2 they started to lay the strips of ripped paper onto their pictures using a soft brush and water. The water causes the dye from the paper to bleed out and after a few moments they would remove the tissue paper revealing an interesting watercolour like finish made by the leftover dyes. This was then left to dry overnight and was completed over a  few days.

 

here you can see the layers of tissue sitting on the "grassy" part of the page.

 

Super fun - and some beautiful images. Many of the kids were really proud!

Fingerprint Impressionism

Students chose images from the impressionist books I had on hand in the class. We Got out some water colour paper and prepared small minimal palettes of tempera (with the intent of developing these in steps and layers so as not to produce muddy results). We then used only the dabbing actions of our fingers to make our own versions of these famous paintings. In a few cases we also used some masking tape to protect zones and give a greater sense of a more solid shape (as in the orange houses for example). This was successful beyond any expectation and the students loved it as well. They were competed over several days.

 

 

 

Birdcrafting

Didn't really know what to call this - I picked up some wooden wall hangar pieces at the dollar store and thought it might be a good project for the Dev class to take on :)

We took the wooden pieces and painted them with a combination of black acrylic and matte medium to give it a great super flat look. We then tore up an old library discard book (the kids thought this was both shocking and hilarious! I let them tear their own pages....) and gloss podged them onto the outer frame.

We then used a bit more podge to add coloured glitter onto the birds. The glitter and gloss podge finish made great contrasts as did the textures of smooth background against the torn text and tiny glitter.

Brushwork, tactile work, glitter - whats not to like? Really a fun, easy project finished over three classes that gives them something nice to take home and hang!

Let 'em dry and brush off the excess glitter :) Good to go!

dripping paint

PAINT DRIP TABLE | BY JOHN NOUANESING

The "Paint or Die But Love Me” Table designed by John Nouanesing seems to be melting. And if not melting, than not even solid in the first place, but rather a paint spill suspended in motion. It´s too bad we can´t order one, so far it’s only in the conceptual art stage because Mr. Craig would LOVE one of these for his house!

Since we are on the topic of dripping paint (and it just so happens that it is a terribly rainy day as I write this!) Check out these dripping paint rain drops!

So Here is the plan for today, - we are going to do photos of ourselves with umbrellas and then we will start preparing out boards for paint!!!!

When everything is ready we will do graphite transfers to add our silhouettes and make our own drippy rainstorms!

Here are some shots of the work by the Dev Class - we used photos as a starting point, graphite transferred them, painted in the silhouette and then used pipettes to drip the paint. Tonnes of fun.

  

Colour Chasing part 1

THIS ONE WAS AN ENORMOUS HIT WITH MY STUDENTS!!!!!! SHARE IT AROUND!!!!!

Adapted from Adventures in Art

"The color field painter Morris Louis inspired this project. I saw a great show of his work last year in D.C. He stuff is so subtle and beautiful; I could stare at it all day. "

"In my student’s version I taped down normal white paper to larger
pieces of cardboard. Large drops of liquid watercolor were then added to the paper. The students raised the cardboard on one side till the paint ran over to the opposite side and then repeated this till the paint was absorbed. The students worked with one color at a time. What I love about these paintings is that each one turned out so different."

Exploring Picasso 4/4 - the final display

I had the students help me to put together the display of their Picasso work. I wanted them to know how proud I am of the work they have done and I think they felt really special to be involved in showing their work this way!

In the end I believe the work speaks for itself and the project was an absolute success!

A Big thank you to the students and the EA's for all the hard work!

 

 

 

 

 

Exploring Picasso Part 3/4 - Colourful Cubist Drawings

Our next step was to take the pair of collage self portraits and have students choose their favorite to frame for our display and then took the second as basis for a Picasso style self portrait drawing project.

The portrait was blown up on the photocopier and then we used chalk pastel to create a transfer of the outlines to a sheet of watercolour paper or construction paper.

The transference is done by scribbling chalk - or graphite - onto the back of the image, setting it atop the blank page and then drawing over all lines with a pen. When lifted it leaves behind a light line drawing of the original image. This is an old trick taught to me by a graphic designer I know. It is easier than tracing through a window & requires no lightbox or other special equipment.

Some students used marker to further enhance their outlines and I think in the future - should I redo this project - I might recommend that for all who are working on lighter coloured papers.
Once the outline was established the students were asked to colour them in using bold colours like those we had seen in Picasso's own work! They could use pastel, marker, crayon or whatever media they like - most opted for chalk pastels that were already handy from doing the transfers and came in strong bright fun colours - a good choice!

Et Voila! Next we will put up a display of all our connected Picasso works! :)