Riley Stars and Stripes

Creative Practitioner Louise Pasquill led our youngest artists into abstraction this week.  Inspired by legendary British artist Bridget Riley, we all watched a short video about her life and her work (hover over blue name to be taken through to the link).  Tate Kids is a great place to introduce children to a wide gallery of art and artists, especially in isolation.  Check it out!

Bridget’s work began in 1960s London where she produced extremely modern, minimalist, optical illusions that were initially monochrome black and white, however, her later work in the 1990s followed a mostly formulaic pattern of lines and crossed lines in wide ranges of colour.

To recreate their own Riley influenced masterpieces, we needed to go BIG.  This A1 poster size is the largest scale the children have been presented with and they were totally unfazed.  With fearless confidence and teamwork they jumped off the deep end…

Each group worked carefully to build a design using positive space, the area left uncovered by the masking tape.  Using rulers to measure the line spacing ensured the designs looked balanced and even.  The boys team went for beautiful regular stripes, with contrasting spots for detail.

Well done boys, you’ve really understood the way Bridget Riley used repetition and line.
Very clever use of tonal variation girls, Bridget would be proud of such precise graduation. Wow, a true collaboration – very energetic, I wonder how this painting will look after the masking tape is removed, revealing the hidden negative space?  Shall we take a look?Three different approaches by each team: the boys, the girls and the boys and girls.  The groups busied themselves working collaboratively towards a universal design.  There was a lot of experimentation within the classroom, and once the paintings were dry and we could remove the masking tape, the magic was revealed.

It’s that simple and the results are truly stunning.  Why not try this project at home on a smaller scale using poster paint, just remember to ensure you leave the paint to dry fully before you try to remove the masking tape (eek).  Good luck and don’t forget to comment, like and post your pictures too.