Cross Contour Animals

Cross contour animals are a great way to introduce volume to middle school students. After a lesson on contour line, we discussed how cross contour lines convey volume. Students selected an animal they wanted to draw. After drawing was complete, cross contours were applied with sharpie. The backgrounds are done in a student generated pattern colored in prismacolor. Shout out to Ms. Power for coming up with this awesome lesson.

Contour line portraits with op art back ground 7th grade

I love the look of OP art but....on it's own, sometimes it can be too plain. We spent about a week on the background alone. Students used sharpies to fill in the checkerboard. We created the circles on a separate piece of paper with a protractor and cut and pasted the sphere on the background. We used a charcoal pencil to add the shadow to give it some depth. The contour line portraits were also done on a separate sheet and pasted. A lot of paper, I know. But, I think it was worth it ;)

Supplies: paper, pencil, rulers, protractor, sharpie and crayola markers, charcoal pencil, scissors