Sunday, November 22, 2009

Radial Symmetry Designs


































The wonderful book, "Dynamic Art Projects for Children" has a great lesson in radial symmetry. This type of design refers to repeating patterns that converge to a center point. Radial symmetry can be seen in the dome of the U.S. capitol building, the stained glass windows of many European cathedrals, Islamic Arabesque tiles, and even in nature's flowers and snowflakes. To create your own design, this project requires a A/B pattern label process where the image is rotated around 180 degrees to create a new design where points converge in the middle, creating a striking design. The top design shows my original 6" drawing. I transferred it to a 12" by 12" paper and repeated the design all the way around. I got a little carried away with detail, but the final product colored in marker is quite nice. I did a second simpler design which I think is also very pretty and more approachable for my students. I decided to introduce my 2nd and 3rd graders(in addition to my older elementary children) to this wonderful and universal form of design. Here is some of their work at various stages of completion.








No comments:

Post a Comment

I appreciate your comments and feedback!