In first grade, we are looking at famous works of art and identifying visual rhythms–rhythms we can see instead of hear, that help move our eyes across the work of art. Beforehand, we had to master musical rhythms, you know, ta ta ta ta, te te ta te te ta, te ta te ta, ta te te ta ta. We could combine what we knew about musical rhythms and use that knowledge to articulate the visual rhythms we noticed in paintings. Sometimes, our identifications would sound like this, “gate woman gate gate, gate woman gate gate” or “dark light dark light.” It is fun to look at art and decide whether or not it is singing to us. Believe it or not, most artwork uses patterns, repetition, and balance to create movement and rhythm. For our art project, we have been steadily working on creating our own visual rhythms with a dash of color theory mixed in.

Step 1: Locate a human figure from a magazine and carefully cut out their silhouette

Step Two: Glue your finely cut out figure to sturdy cardboard

Step Three: Re-cut your figure out of cardboard. Be sure to use a hole punch to get into the areas of negative space

Step Four: Choose a complementary color pair (colors across the color wheel from one another like red and green, orange and blue and yellow and violet) to collage the background of your piece. Use scrap paper to cut shapes.

Step Five: Exhibit fine craftsmanship when cutting and gluing complementary colors.

Step Six: Get creative with your shapes. The art studio is a place for risk taking!

Stay tuned for the next few steps involving analogous color schemes, repetition, and motion!