Anamorphic Art

Subjects: Geometry, Art

Patty Winkler
Michael E. DeBakey High School for Health Professions
3100 Shenandoah Street
Houston, TX 77021
email address: pwinkler@houstonisd.org

Overview

This lesson is recommended for middle or high school. It is meant to be a fun lesson to generate interest in geometrical patterns and the world around us.

Objectives

  1. Develop an appreciation of geometry as a means of describing the physical world
  2. Recognize anamorphic techniques used in artwork
  3. Create scale drawing of an object using anamorphic projection techniques.
  4. Use Adobe Photoshop to explore the „anamorphic¾ techniques which can be applied to photos and graphics using modern computer technology
  5. Find and view information from the WWW

Prerequisite Skills

The student must be able to
  1. develop a drawing using basic perspective geometry.
  2. evelop a scale drawing of similar objects.

Materials Needed

	graph paper
	grid in distorted dimensions compared to the graph paper
	Adobe Photoshop

Procedures

In this lesson, I want the students to develop an appreciation for great works of art while they are discovering the perspective geometry present in the work itself. There are a few anamorphic projections contained with this lesson, but the book that is l isted in the resource section is a wealth of examples and information.

Anamorphic art is the art of distorting images. In a sense you could call your shadow a type of anamorphic art, since your shadow is a distortion of your actual body shape. This type of art was created for amusement and for concealing objects. For example , during the reigns of Kings George I and II an anamorphic portrait of the åpretender¼ to the throne, Charles Edward Stuart, may have been used by supporters to conceal their allegiance. This art was also used to carry political protests messages and secr ets. In addition, anamorphic paintings were sold with anamorphoscopes, in shapes of cylinders or cones as toys in the 18th and 19th centuries. These anamorphoscopes were made of a mirror-like substance so that the image would look less distorted when view ed in the mirror. (Examples of these are included with the lesson.)

Anamorphic art had its roots in France, the Netherlands and China, but some other cultures have shown art which use these techniques. Since students have covered perspective and scale drawing techniques, they should see their relationship to the anamorphi c sketches provided with this lesson.

As a group discuss one of the anamorphisms and how it was developed. Discuss the difficulty of going from a square grid drawing to a circular anamorphism. Have the students attempt a distortion like the dog attached. Take a piece of mylar and form a cyli nder or cone to make an anamorphoscope and use it with the designs provided. What affect does it have on the distortion?

Finally, allow the students some computer lab time to research anamorphic art on the Internet. If the software is available, allow the students to explore different distortions on photos and graphics using Adobe Photoshop. Many of these techniques are ve ry powerful and have immediate effects on the students¼ understanding.

Evaluation

The creation of the design discussed above.

Resource Materials

	Internet
	books on Anamorphic art
	Examples of anamorphic art

Teacher Comments

I became quite interested in this topic when I went to the Houston Museum of Natural Science and saw their giant anamorphic projection of a zebra. It is still difficult to teach, but the students usually enjoy it. They really enjoy looking at pieces of wo rk which are already done and trying to figure out what the artist did to distort the picture in that way.

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Michael E. DeBakey High School for Health Professions
 3100 Shenandoah Street, Houston, TX  77021
Phone:  (713) 741-2410       Fax:  (713) 746-5211
Principal: Dr. Charlesetta Deason

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