Op Art is made up of three characteristics: Movement, 3D, and Illusion. 8th graders were given Illusion for this project. We looked at the work of Patrick Hughes, a British contemporary painter known for this style of painting.
Reverse perspective, or inverse perspective, is a form of perspective drawing in which the objects depicted in a scene are placed between the projected point (the point that sticks out toward viewers) and the viewing plane (what the viewer sees from where they stand). This gives the visual effect that objects farther away from the viewing plane are drawn as larger, and closer objects are drawn as smaller, in contrast to the more conventional linear perspective for which closer objects appear larger. In layman's terms, what we think we see as farther away is actually physically closer to us. The illusion of depth perspective changes back and forth as we view the piece.
This was a highly technical project for students who had a very limited prior art experience in school. Students had to understand linear perspective, where horizontal and vertical lines converge toward a vanishing points. Both walls shared a single vanishing point, while the ceiling and floor each had their own. The trick was knowing when to make vertical lines up-and-down and horizontal lines side-to-side, or when to angle them to their respective vanishing points. The drawings were done on a template, and when cut and assembled, they become a flat pyramid mounted onto a cardboard support.
Materials: template for the room (contact me for the template), pencils, rulers, colored pencils, markers, glue sticks, 8 x 10 cardboard support wrapped in black construction paper.
