Patterns: Illusions: History

Giuseppe Arcimboldo was an Italian Renaissance painter best known for creating imaginative portrait heads made entirely of such objects as fruits, vegetables, flowers, fish, and books — that is, he painted representations of these objects on the canvas arranged in such a way that the whole collection of objects formed a recognizable likeness of the portrait subject.

http://lunaticadesnuda.blogspot.com/2009/03/renaissance-illusion-paintings-giuseppe.html

Patterns: Optical Illusions

Online Resources


92 Visual Phenomena & Optical Illusions
http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/index.html

Top 10 Visual Illusions (2011 Contest)
http://illusioncontest.neuralcorrelate.com/cat/top-10-finalists/2011/

New Optical Illusions
http://newopticalillusions.blogspot.com/

Color: History: Newton & Goethe

Our modern understanding of light and color begins with Isaac Newton (1642-1726) and a series of experiments that he publishes in 1672. He is the first to understand the rainbow — he refracts white light with a prism, resolving it into its component colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet.

http://www.webexhibits.org/colorart/bh.html

Newton had viewed color as a physical problem, involving light striking objects and entering our eyes. Goethe realized that the sensations of color reaching our brain are also shaped by our perception — by the mechanics of human vision and by the way our brains process information. Therefore, according to Goethe, what we see of an object depends upon the object, the lighting and our perception.

http://www.webexhibits.org/colorart/ch.html

ACTIVITY: Hello, Red Fox
http://www.eric-carle.com/bb-HRFnotes.html

Color: Making & Changing Colors

With art supplies, there are three primary colors: red, yellow, and blue. You can mix these colors together to make all the other colors but no colors can be mixed together to make red, yellow, and blue. Look for the primary colors that separate out of the marker color! You can remember the colors of the rainbow with the acronym ROY G BIV, where each letter stands for the name of a color.

http://www.crayola.com/coloringcraft/craft/printer.cfm?id=1755

ACTIVITY: Bleeding Markers
http://educationaltoyfactory.com/colorscience.htm

Secret Colors in a Black Marker
http://www.exploratorium.edu/science_explorer/black_magic.html

Color Changing Milk
http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/experiment/00000066
Video: http://youtu.be/6T3C-0-Djas

Color: Illusions: Artificial Color

In 1894, toymaker Mr. C.E. Benham discovered that a spinning disk with a particular pattern of black and white marks could cause people to see colors. Mr. Benham called his disk an "Artificial Spectrum Top" and sold it through Messrs. Newton and Co. Benham's Top (or Benham's Disk) has puzzled scientists for over 100 years.

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/benham.html

ACTIVITY: Benham's Top

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/pdf/benham.pdf

Online Resources

Simulation: http://www.biyee.net/color-science/benham-top/

Color and Light: Rainbows

Sunlight does not look as if it has any color, so it is called white light. But sunlight is actually made from lots of different colors. You can see these colors when it is sunny and raining at the same time as a rainbow forms. The raindrops split the light into seven different colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.

http://www.kids-science-experiments.com/cat_curiouscolors.html

ACTIVITY: Rainbows in a Dark Room
http://www.kids-science-experiments.com/rainbowsinadarkroom.html
Rainbows in a Bright Room
http://www.kids-science-experiments.com/makingarainbowonasunnyday.html
Magic Color Breakdown
http://www.kids-science-experiments.com/colorbreakdown.html

Color: Theory: Color Wheel

Leonardo da Vinci, in 1490, was the first to use, and expand upon the concepts of the color wheel, and the theory of color. The use of primary colors enhanced the importance of colour theory, and is one of the reasons we still use it today.
http://www.colors-4life.com/color-theory.html


ACTIVITY: Determining Your Eye Color
http://www.color-chart.org/eye-color-chart.php
Worksheet: http://illuminations.nctm.org/Lessons/EyeToEye/Eye-AS-EyeColor.pdf


Video: Color Mixing Wheel
http://youtu.be/WYZWDEmLR90