by Dan Frenette BS (Art Education), MA
In my previous article I mentioned that people see space and discern what is near and what is far in a variety of ways. In that article I addressed overlapping which is one of the most basic ways we discern near and far. Today I’d like to bring up diminishing size as a way to make things look far away.
On an unconscious level we all know that things that are far away look smaller and things that are close look larger but if we consciously consider that fact and try to use it in our art we can create an illusion of distance in our artwork.
When working with younger students (say 5 years old through 8 or 9 years old) it is helpful to demonstrate this idea of diminishing size. When I demonstrate this idea I usually have my student hold up their hand and look at a distant object (anything will work, for example a television). I then ask the student which looks larger. They will answer “my hand looks larger”. I then ask if their hand is in fact larger and the response is always “no”. Then I ask which is larger an elephant or a mouse. They will answer that the elephant is larger. I then ask “If you had a mouse in your hand and an elephant was across the street which would LOOK larger?” They then seem to understand the idea and tell me that the mouse would look larger.
Once your student understands the basic idea (and answers several questions like those listed above) they can begin to experiment with diminishing size. At first I suggest you give the student a little freedom to choose subject matter and allow them to do a sort of “free drawing” that includes the idea. If they are having trouble coming up with an idea you may suggest an underwater scene or houses with hills. Also encourage overlapping.
This is a basic skill that can apply to many projects, try this with collage, drawing, painting, and\or any other material your student likes. Collage can be especially useful with this since the student is cutting out the objects and controlling the size in that way, they also overlap actual separate pieces of paper which makes the overlapping idea (from part one of this series) more meaningful.
As always I strongly encourage anyone who is working with children doing art projects to try to include some solid ideas on color and\or space. When these ideas are not addressed art time can easily descend into a meaningless waste of time. The idea is to introduce perceptual ideas to the student and have them work creatively with those ideas and use those ideas to express themselves.
Dan Frenette has over 20 years of experience teaching art to students aged 5 through 16. His main creating situations where children can experiment with and “play” with the ideas found in the elements of are and principles of design. See his lessons here: http://www.youtube.com/dandanart
In my previous article I mentioned that people see space and discern what is near and what is far in a variety of ways. In that article I addressed overlapping which is one of the most basic ways we discern near and far. Today I’d like to bring up diminishing size as a way to make things look far away.
On an unconscious level we all know that things that are far away look smaller and things that are close look larger but if we consciously consider that fact and try to use it in our art we can create an illusion of distance in our artwork.
When working with younger students (say 5 years old through 8 or 9 years old) it is helpful to demonstrate this idea of diminishing size. When I demonstrate this idea I usually have my student hold up their hand and look at a distant object (anything will work, for example a television). I then ask the student which looks larger. They will answer “my hand looks larger”. I then ask if their hand is in fact larger and the response is always “no”. Then I ask which is larger an elephant or a mouse. They will answer that the elephant is larger. I then ask “If you had a mouse in your hand and an elephant was across the street which would LOOK larger?” They then seem to understand the idea and tell me that the mouse would look larger.
Once your student understands the basic idea (and answers several questions like those listed above) they can begin to experiment with diminishing size. At first I suggest you give the student a little freedom to choose subject matter and allow them to do a sort of “free drawing” that includes the idea. If they are having trouble coming up with an idea you may suggest an underwater scene or houses with hills. Also encourage overlapping.
This is a basic skill that can apply to many projects, try this with collage, drawing, painting, and\or any other material your student likes. Collage can be especially useful with this since the student is cutting out the objects and controlling the size in that way, they also overlap actual separate pieces of paper which makes the overlapping idea (from part one of this series) more meaningful.
As always I strongly encourage anyone who is working with children doing art projects to try to include some solid ideas on color and\or space. When these ideas are not addressed art time can easily descend into a meaningless waste of time. The idea is to introduce perceptual ideas to the student and have them work creatively with those ideas and use those ideas to express themselves.
Dan Frenette has over 20 years of experience teaching art to students aged 5 through 16. His main creating situations where children can experiment with and “play” with the ideas found in the elements of are and principles of design. See his lessons here: http://www.youtube.com/dandanart
