HIGH SCHOOL

Eric Gibbons

Ibelieve that students should have rigorous experiences working with primary colors. I also feel that creating traditional color wheels should be left for an assessment or a short exercise. I balance these two ideas by designing explorations that can be personally expressive and only making primary colors available to students when they have to mix primaries.

This lesson was inspired by contemporar y artist Sarah Morris and her colorful, unfolded origami series. It’s easy to see how a square divided into geometric shapes can be colored in with primary colors and their mixes. Because a square has four corners, I have students add black or white to their palettes so we can talk about tints or shades as well.

We start with some brainstorming. I hand out index cards for students to write down their interests such as travel, sports, favorite foods, pets, and hobbies. This will help them later to seek out origami video tutorials that are tied to their personal interests. If they have a cat at home, they could do an origami cat, for example.

Studentsʼ unfolded origami color wheel compositions inspired by the work of contemporary artist Sarah Morris.

I share a video to prime students for the project. Evan Zodl’s The Satisfying Math of Folding Origami from TEDEd (see Resources) is excellent for this project because it shows STEM connections to origami and examples of f lat foldable crease patterns. We take notes and I post the four mathematical rules of origami mentioned in the video for students to use later.

I ask students to raise their hands if they’ve ever made origami before. I note these students and divide the class into groups with at least one experienced helper in each. I provide copy paper that has already been cut into squares for folding. Next, we get out our electronic devices and fold along with YouTube origami videos.

I encourage students to view the videos before trying the folding demonstration to see if the video is complete and doesnʼt have too many steps. They start with easy figures first and then try a few challenging ones. Students fold for three days and save all their figures, successful or not, and I grade them on ten folding attempts. As students complete each figure, they add their name and what the figure is (e.g., a dog), because once the piece is unfolded, they may forget.

Next, we examine the unfolded figures and count the number of spaces/ shapes in each. I find that between twenty and forty shapes makes for a good project. More than fifty shapes may be too challenging, and if thereʼs less than twenty, there won’t be enough spaces to make a color wheel. One student had a very difficult time with origami, so we took his simplest figure and repeated the folding four more times to make enough spaces for the project.

This lesson was inspired by contemporary artist Sarah Morris and her colorful, unfolded origami series.

Students refold their best figure with larger drawing paper. I pre-cut this paper to the size of our square canvases. You can purchase square canvas boards of various sizes; I like the 12" (30 cm) size for this project.

Students unfold their larger origami work and use carbon paper and rulers to transfer the fold lines to the canvas, then use rulers to trace over the lines on their canvas with thick permanent marker. This will make it easy to see the areas that need to be painted.

Clockwise from left: Gray G., Dragon, unfolded origami color wheel on canvas, unfolded origami design on drawing paper, and original figure refolded using professional origami paper. Some students used protractors to measure angles. Students practiced folding a variety of figures.

Students use cups of acrylics in primary colors, plus black and white. On their square canvas, they have one space for each primary color, plus an additional space for black or white. Students mix the primaries to create the colors that are needed between those shapes to fill in their canvas. Two coats of the student-grade acrylics usually suffice.

Students use paint pens and rulers to trace any sharp edges. Painting the edges using masking tape will make this project take longer.

My advanced students photograph their unfolded origami papers with a single light source. These photos are printed in black-and-white to show any shadows on the paper’s relief surface. Based on the photos, students add tints and shades to their canvas paintings to create the illusion of depth.

To close the project, students refold their figures using professional colored origami paper. I also have them prove one or more of the four mathematical rules of origami on their opened papers. I borrow protractors from the math department if any students choose to measure angles. These were all displayed with the paintings in our library, along with a collection of origami books.

This exploration was well received by administration and the math department, who appreciated this great example of STEAM education!

Eric Gibbons is a National Board Certified art educator at Vernon Malone College and Career High School in Raleigh, North Carolina. lovsart@gmail.com

Connecting: Relating artistic ideas and work with personal meaning and external context.

Evan Zodl TEDEd: bit.ly/OrigamiCW Video Tutorials: bit.ly/OriCW