FIFTH GRADE . . . Optical Illusions

Optical illusion by David

Maurits Cornelis Escher, best known to us as M.C. Escher, was a Dutch graphic artist. His woodcut, called "Sky and Water," from 1938, is typical of Escher's work. It plays around with the positive and negative spaces in the print, tricking us to focus on just the bird in the sky or the fish in the water. In mathematical terms, his artwork is often called a tessellation, a repetition of tiles that fit together like a puzzle.

Fifth graders worked on original illusions with one image that tessellates together with another image in the negative space. This project was difficult for us to do and definitely called on our creative thinking skills. It is hard enough to solve a problem, even harder to come up with our own puzzle for everyone else to solve! The main idea behind our puzzles is to be able to see an image two different ways. Many of our students played around with the negative spaces in letters of the alphabet, and others used a more random shape.

Here are a few examples of their illusions. To see all of our work, check out our exhibit page on Artsonia.com.  http://www.artsonia.com/schools/school.asp?id=114839

Illusion by Anya

Illusion by Pierce

Illusion by Aadhi

Illusion by Nate

Illusion by Luke

Illusion by Maya