One Point Perspective Collages

Prior to the Renaissance (during the Middle Ages) artists were less concerned with the illusion of reality and more concerned with the content and symbolism of their work. The size of each element in the image related much more to its importance, rather than it's placement in a space. By the height of the Renaissance, artists had mastered the mathematics and visual techniques of perspective. Artists like Brunelleschi, Raphael and Da Vinci were using it to great effect, giving their work a stronger illusion depth. The simplest form of perspective is one point perspective. It presumes a single point, which all others move towards, like looking down a straight road as far as you can see and lines which we know are parallel seem to converge on a single point known as the vanishing point. We can see this in the picture of Da Vinci’s Last Supper, pictured here.

In my quarterly Renaissance Art History course, I always do some sort of one point perspective art project, like these names, to give the kids a chance to learn the technique. Wanting to spice it up this quarter, I looked on Pinterest for ideas and found this lesson for inspiration (and I basically totally copied it!). We used chipboard for the perspective shapes and flat cardboard box sides for the collage backing. To give the shapes a little depth, we glued little stacks of cardboard between the collage and shapes (see last photo). While they took a lot longer than the usual projects we do in this course, I am so pleased with the beautiful results!

Michelangelo's David

Third quarter 6th grade Art History students collaborated to create this pencil version of Michelangelo's famous Renaissance sculpture, David (second quarter kids made a Mona Lisa in oil pastel). Each student in class received two pieces of the "puzzle" and were challenged to use value to show the 3-dimensional form. I think it looks pretty awesome put back together!

Mona Lisa

My Art History class recently completed their study of Leonardo Da Vinci and created this collaborative version of the Mona Lisa as part of it. Each student looked at a small square of the original artwork (I cut up a small poster of it) and created a larger copy of it using oil pastels. Our version of the masterpiece measures about 36" x 24" and looks pretty cool on display in the hallway!

Here's What's Happening...

In the beginning of the year, it takes a while to get art projects completed, on display in the hallways, and posted on the blog, but that doesn't mean we aren't hard at work in the art room! Here's a rundown on what's been happening in each of my classes so far this school year:

Fifth grade boys followed a webquest in order to learn about the history, uses and making of African Masks before creating their own mask designs. We worked for three days on the creation of masks in clay, that are now drying and waiting to be fired and glazed:

 Sixth graders taking art this quarter are working on their Warm and Cool Portraits with Tesselations. The first step was to learn about the history and making of tesselations (they were first created in Mesopotamia, more than 6,000 years ago and came in the form of pebbles set in plaster and later in clay mosaic tiles on floors and walls of mosques) and we checked out inspiring artists like M.C. Escher. I taught the kids how to create their own tesselation shape from simple polygons and they traced their shapes onto large paper. They chose a warm or cool color scheme to paint their backgrounds. The next step was to trace a projection of their face, outlining dark and light shapes. The faces will be painted using the color scheme opposite of their tesselations.

 

Sixth graders in Art History made mini fresco paintings this week after learning about the technique used often in the Renaissance. Upon arriving to class, they mixed fresh plaster and poured it into a plate. While it started to set up, we cracked eggs and used the yolks mixed with powdered pigment to make "egg tempera" paint. We transferred a picture of the Mona Lisa to the plaster surface by poking holes in the "cartoon" and pouncing charcoal through the perforations (this is what Michelangelo even did when he painted the Sistine Chapel!), and painted using our homemade paints:

Seventh graders are working on a series of 'before-during-after' artworks of fruit. While I would prefer the kids be always drawing from observation, with the object in front of them, we ended up taking photos of the fruit in the various stages of being eaten. Students are using watercolor pencils to render their work and are off to a good start!

Eighth graders are underway personalizing their "self portrait" plaster masks. The masks are not meant to look like them, but the design is a reflection of something about "self"-something that is important or special to them. They are "portraits" in that the face is the canvas. Some students are adding extra plaster pieces, cutting into the mask or simply painting their designs on. I am excited to see the final products soon!

Buon Compleanno Leonardo!!!

This Sunday, April 15th, would mark Leonardo Da Vinci's 560th birthday, so it was only fitting that we celebrated his special day in Art History class with a big party! Luckily, his birthday coincides with our unit on him this quarter- woo hoo! Perhaps we should have been serving spaghetti, but instead we had cupcakes, chips, brownies, cookies and soda. And, no birthday party would be complete without singing "Happy Birthday", right? But since Da Vinci was Italian, we invited Dr. P to come in and teach us to sing it in Italian, which was pretty cool. Oh, and don't worry, while noshing on all the treats and singing, we were also drawing gadgets in the style of Leonardo Da Vinci. It was a fun day!

YUM!!! Graul's cupcakes can't be beat!

Written in "mirror writing," the way Da Vinci would have done it himself!

Balloons and streamers too!

"Gadget" drawing- this table had a clamp lamp

Our resident Italian Dr. P teaching us to sing "Buon Compleanno Leonardo!"

One Point Perspective

Prior to the Renaissance (during the Middle Ages) artists were less concerned with the illusion of reality and more concerned with the content and symbolism of their work. The size of each element in the image related much more to its importance, rather than it's placement in a space. By the height of the Renaissance, artists had mastered the mathematics and visual techniques of perspective. Artists like Leonardo Da Vinci and Brunelleschi were using it to great effect, giving their work a stronger illusion depth. The simplest form of perspective is one point perspective. It presumes a single point, which all others move towards, like looking down a straight road as far as you can see and lines which we know are parallel seem to converge on a single point known as the vanishing point. 

 To draw in one point perspective, Art History students drew a vanishing point anywhere on their paper. They then wrote their names or initials in block letters and the lines which are parallel were drawn to intersect at the vanishing point, creating the illusion of depth on their letters.