Monday, August 31, 2009

Tessellations: Geometric Art


A tessellations is created when a shape is repeated over and over again, covering a plane without any gaps or overlays.
I didn't know this until I discovered this term while researching this week's Unplugged Project: Geometric.


This art form is also explored in our new favorite art book: The Usborne Complete of Book of Art Ideas.
This is by far, the best book of art for kids that I have ever used.
To find out more about tessellations, check out this wonderful website, Coolmath4kids.
I found printables to use for coloring at this website also.
We discussed patterns and geometric shapes that fit together.
We also had a lesson on the colorwheel and complimentary colors.
Luke worked on his geometric patterns, but this is as far as he got. After coloring these two hexagons he moved on to the pattern blocks, which are another type of tessellation.

Kimmy stuck to her coloring for quite awhile, I was very proud of her.
We have this real neat Puzzellations set from Barnes and Noble.
We had a whole set of tessellations and didn't even know it--until yesterday!!
Our finished pictures.
We learned that using complementary colors in our geometric pictures make the picture "POP".
Amy and Laura then moved on to other geometric art from our new favorite book.
Gracie worked a long time to complete her artwork!!
Laura made a pattern from directions in our book.
Using this pattern, she was able make a beautiful geometric picture.
The effects of this technique are amazing.
I need to get a frame for this!!
Puzzles are also tessellations.
Grace is getting a little help from big brother Pat with this puzzle.
Amy made a "tessellation transformation"
This is from our new art book.
SO COOL!!
Check out others geometric Unplugged Project here.
Next weeks Unplugged Project is OCEAN

5 comments:

So Smrt said...

Wow, I love the birds and seals. I had to make an original tesselation in an art class in college...it's not easy!

Rhonda said...

Whoa these are just so cool!

no one said...

great!! so reminiscent of the artist MC Escher. Love them!

Michelle said...

Great job! I love the tesselations, that was a project I loved in school. The tesselation transformation is wonderful...she is very talented!

Anonymous said...

Great project! That Usborne book is wonderful isn't it? I'll have to check out the section on tesselations. Your children did a wonderful job. The tesselation transformation is very clever. Nice work!