Perspective in Space

September 2014

Art Element Focus: Space

We began this lesson with a brief discussion of space and the two meanings of the word.  The first was "outer space".  The second was space as it relates to art...the idea of creating a sense of three dimensions on a two dimensional surface.  We talked about surrealism and looked at some of Salvador Dali's artwork.  Most students had never heard of surrealism and were curious about the dreamy images. Next, I introduced one point perspective as a way to create the illusion of three dimensional space.  

Here is the process...

Step 1: Students followed step by step instructions to draw a room using one point perpective.  This was a guided lesson and took about 50 min.

Step 2:  They colored their room with markers and colored pencils.  Then, they cut out the doors, windows, and ceiling.

Step3:  They glued the room to black construction paper and drew a space background in the black shapes using colored pencil.

Step 4:  They were given magazines and cut out wacky pictures to add.  I showed them how to cut around the edge of the photo so that the images would actually look like they existed in the room. 

The wackier the better for this one!  The kids loved the having the opportunity to get silly snd be weird. Imaginations were soaring! Also, looking through the National Geographics brought up some interesting conversations.