Classroom Activities
Introductory Lesson
The classroom activities will be divided between a large introductory lesson and three specialized lessons. The unit as a whole will be introduced by showing the students a variety of optical illusions. I will not explain how any of them work but will use this as a way to engage the students' interest. At the end of the slide show I will ask them to tell me how they think optical illusions work. I will allow them time to brainstorm and write their suggestions on the board. For homework I will ask the students to find an optical illusion that was not shown during class.
The next few class periods will be focused on the brain and how it works. I will start by going over the basic anatomy and function of the brain. Next, we will look closely at the visual system, starting with the eye and how light enters the eye and is turned into signals that are sent to different parts of the brain. Finally, the two different visual pathways will be introduced and the students will create a Venn diagram comparing and contrasting the "what" and "where" systems. For homework, they will have a simple diagram of eye and brain to label.
The "Where" System Lesson
During this lesson, the students will focus on the "where" system. We will look at how the brain perceives depth and how artists throughout time have depicted depth. I will review the seven techniques of illusion of depth that the students learned in 6 th grade. Next, I will introduce, with examples, the six cues that the brain perceives that show depth. The students will, in small groups, match the seven techniques and six cues in order to see the areas in which they correlate. At the end of the class period, for homework, I will give each student a copy of William Hogarth's Satire on False Perspective and challenge them to find as many examples of false perspective as they can and to think about how they might create a picture that "breaks" the rules such as Hogarth's etching.
The next several days will involve the students creating their own picture that will break the "rules" of depth. On 18" by 24" construction paper, the students will draw their landscape, using chalk. I will ask that they create ten things that break the rules of perspective. After they have drawn their image, they will use tempera paint to finish it. To display their work, I will ask them to create an "answer" key that would help viewers find the ten incorrect perspective items. Finally, I will display the students' paintings in the hall, along with their answer keys.
As students are finishing their paintings, I will give them a handout on M.C. Escher. The next class period, I will focus on M.C. Escher and his impossible staircases. I will show clips from the DVD The Fantastic World of M.C. Escher. Using the Internet, the students will look at examples of Escher's work and variations on his work. For homework, I will give each student a blank impossible staircase and challenge them to create their own finished impossible staircase.
The "What" System Lesson
In this lesson, I will introduce the students to how artists have used color and how the "what" system perceives the color effects that artists have used. I will begin with showing images of art that use value (luminance) to create effects. As I show the images, I will ask the students if they can explain the effects using the "what" and "where" systems. I will help if they need it. Some of the images will include Monet's Impression Sunrise, Matisse's Lady in a Hat, Picasso's The Tragedy, Poor People by the Seashore, Mondrian's Broadway Boogie Woogie, Isia Leviant's Enigma and Bridget Riley's Fall.
The next day I will introduce Pointillism and Georges Seurat. I will explain that this school of art illustrates the first time that artists purposely tried to use the way the brain perceives color as a way to achieve effects in artwork. I will explain how Pointillism was meant to work and why it does not. I will then show the classes the first act of Sunday in the Park with George. The following day, I will have the students begin a small (9" by 12") painted landscape using the techniques of Pointillism. I will have the students use a limited palette of colors: red, orange, yellow, blue, green, purple, white and brown. I will not let them use black, as I am concerned that the black will be overpowering in the image.
When the students are finished with their paintings I will show them some images by Roy Lichtenstein, a Pop artist who was heavily influenced by comic books and advertising. In his work, Lichtenstein used Ben—day Dots, a method of printing color that used overlapping dots of limited colors. The students will be able to see the connection to both Seurat and printing. For homework I will have the students create, in their sketchbook, a reproduction of a part of a comic strip using enlarged Ben—day Dots. They will do this using magic markers.
Optical Illusion Lesson
At this point, I will review the two different visual pathways. Next, I will show the students the same slide show of optical illusions that I showed them the first day of the unit. This time, I will ask them to try to figure out how each optical illusion works in terms of the brain and the visual pathways. I hope that they will be able to explain most of the illusions.
I will have each student create an optical illusion of movement. Using a concentric circles and shading, student will use complementary colors to depict movement. By using shading, it will give the appearance of movement. The students will use a compass to create the circles and segments within the circles. This is image is a basic approximation of what they students will create; however they will do it in color. At the end of this unit, I believe the students will have an understanding of how the brain processes vision and how that directly effects art. My hope is that this knowledge will impact how they perceive art in the future.
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