A New Perspective with Peter Max
It's March everyone!!! Students and teachers are definitely starting to feel the cabin fever. I have noticed that about this time of the year, I have a tendency to use a lot of florescent colors. What I mean is that pretty much 60% -100% of my projects involve florescent paint of some kind. We all need that extra boost of color (or maybe its just me) this time of the year, so why not cover the hallways with tons of florescent art pieces, right? I have been doing this project for the past few years and kids are starting to ask for it every year. I also love this project because I get to throw in a lot of art history. On the first day of this project I introduce Brunelleschi and have a short discussion about the renaissance. I also found this great youtube video that talks about the experiment that Brunelleschi uses to discover that his system worked. I would love to make my students do this some year.
I then show students how to create one-point perspective forms using the smart board. We first draw a horizon line and add a vanishing point. Then I have students tell me some different shapes they can be geometric, free-form, and organic shapes. We then draw our orthogonals from our shapes to the vanishing point. Kids repeat this process on their own paper.
On the second day of this project students started their finally project by draw 6 one point perspective forms. Students make sure to spread their forms out on the piece of paper so they are not over lapping. Many students incorporated things about themselves in the different forms such as sports numbers and nick names.
3rd Day I intro gradation and students start adding a gradation to their work. I love using Crayola Florescent Premier Tempera paints for this project and the kids love to get to use the bright colors. Students spend about two days finishing their gradations. When they are done painting they outline everything in sharpie.
On the 4th day I introduce how to do their landscape for the background. We start by drawing a horizon line and vanishing point. We then draw a semi-circle with the finishing point in the middle. I show the kids how to have all the rays(orthogonal) lead to their vanishing point. I usually have one or two that forget to do this one every class. Once they have these basics they can really add any personal details that they want.
I let students spend two days on their landscape and on day 6 I demonstrate how they can use the shape punches to add some more geometric shapes into their background then students can cut and glue on their one-point perspective forms.
To finish up this project students photograph and complete an artist statement. I just truly love how this project allows for so much choice. Its so much fun to see how each student alters the project to make it more meaningful for them.
