Op Art Spheres

Hello there,

Fourth grade has been working on Op Art and spheres! 
They love the Op Art visuals - I mainly focus on Bridget Riley and Victor Vasarley. I show some Escher too, but focus more on the idea of optical illusions and math concepts used. They love looking at the visuals - I could probably spend an entire class with just a slide show of Riley and Vasarely! 
We then transition to value, and shading spheres properly. I turn off the lights and break out my flashlight and a ball to demonstrate how light hits a sphere. Shading and value take at least a full class (and some frustration) for the students to feel comfortable, but it is all worth it in the end! The fourth grade artists loved when they could take a tissue to their shading and really blend those values together. Here are a few finished works! 

Realistic v.s. Surreal Self-portraits

Hello there!
For the past few weeks, fourth grade artists at one of my schools have been focusing on the concept of surrealism. We viewed and talked about many different artworks, including some Dali and Magritte. I loved their reactions to all of the paintings! They really had strong reactions to what they saw, which made another teachable moment! We then discussed realism, which was a little easier for them to relate to and understand, as we had done "true" self-portraits last year.  They then had to create a self-portrait using both learned concepts! Here are some results! (Click to enlarge)

Thank you for checking out their hard work!!