This is my youngest son's Op-art project. I've seen this style of artwork done before and it looks really cool when it's finished. I'm not sure if he quite understood what he was doing because the "highlight" didn't run in a uniform line down each section...which is fairly important for the illusion to work. He said he was sick the day the class got the instructions but they did do a smaller, rough draft first so I would like to think that any misconceptions were addressed then. Never-the-less, as I watched I thought "great project"--it teaches line form and depth-- but then as the hours passed and there was nothing left of the poor little pencil crayons or the child's tired out hand...I thought, hmmm maybe a bit too much repetitive coloring to keep the interest of the more "active" kids in the class (mine being one of them--"Anders, sit back down. Anders, keep shading. No, Anders, it's not time to play with the dog. Anders, the pencil crayon is sharp enough."--for approx. 4 hours!!). By the end, he had lost interest and just wanted to get it done and it showed in the change in quality from start to finish.
Here is his process:
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I managed to find 3 pencil crayons of the same color and kept them sharpened for him so that he could just continue to color without getting distracted to sharpen. It also saved him from having to use an uber-short pencil crayon (like he did with the blue), which becomes really tiring on the hand. |
I think the project looks great but it is an interesting point that we need to make our projects the right length so as not to "lose" our students. Quality over quantity can be an important thing to remember.
ReplyDeleteI love how the project turned out--I think it looks really interesting! But the fact that he worked for four hours at home to complete it blows me away! That's a long time! Good for him.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Evan and Andrea. This looks like a pretty cool project, something he should be proud of. Thanks for the important reminder though, that when we give an assignment that becomes tedious it will become a chore by the end. One of our main purposes in teaching art should be to encourage kids to enjoy it, so it seems like something like this would defeat the main purpose (which is more important than making a really cool piece of art.)
ReplyDeleteReally! Good comments. This project might have been done on a smaller paper or it could have been kept in a folder to be finished in spare moments over a week or two.
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