What you need
1. A few sheets of black paper per child
2. One white piece of paper
3. Semi-translucent paper such as tissue paper/tracing paper/baking paper
Optional: The Foggy Foggy Forest by Nick Sharratt – a picture book with translucent pages that are printed with black silhouettes of trees and fairytale characters. Spend time reading it to the children and discuss the images, style of artwork and how they could have created the pictures.
We then discussed what perspective was and how it is created
To make something close up you:
– Make it larger
– Darker and brighter
– More detailed
– Place it lower down on the page
– Create/draw it in the foreground (on top of other things)
Therefore to make things look as thought they are in the background you do the opposite of these things.
Firstly the students cut out the furthest background layers with the smallest amount of detail and stuck this onto the white page.
Next they cut the middle layers which needed to be lower down and include a little bit more detail each time they added a layer.
Lastly they cut out the foreground making sure it had lots of detail, was larger in size and overlapped other objects.
They loved the results and enjoyed making the silhouette pictures.
* I nearly always allow the students to choose the images they want to draw as it allows them to draw upon their interests and experiences. It keeps them engaged, focussed and also allows for differentiation within images, topics and styles.