Monday, May 17, 2010

Op Art Paper Weaving

Op Art - meaning Optical Art
The idea is when the viewer looks at this art it almost seems like the piece is moving or vibrating.  There can be patterns, hidden images and lines that look like they are warping, bending or swelling.  Kinda makes you dizzy right?

Famous Op Artists are Bridget Riley and Victor Vasarely

I was thinking about how I could recreate Bridget Riley's "Movement in Squares" with my kids.  The idea of drawing, coloring and painting the very precise lines seemed a little hard, then I thought of paper weaving and it came out great!





Materials needed:
- Extra large construction paper in Black and White
- A big paper cutter is great if you have one!
- Scissors
- Ruler
- Pencils
- Glue

Ahead of time, cut the white paper into 3 or 4 different sized strips

Directions: (Picture tutorial coming soon!)
1.  Fold the big black piece of paper in half.
2.  Take the ruler and trace it across the open ended side of the paper
3.  Then use the ruler to trace vertical lines from the top line you just drew all the way down to the bottom folded edge
4.  Cut the lines you just drew
5.  Open it up and start arranging your white strips into piles by their size.
6.  The idea is to start weaving the white strips in, varying the size of the strips to mimic Riley's painting.
7.  Push the strips tight together and once they are all in and you are happy with the way it looks, glue the edges down to the black paper.

1 comment:

  1. Please, it seems very great... i am a teacher and i really want to have your pictures for tutorial because i don't speak english very well :( . When do you post them ? Thanks.

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