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Dot Scenes and Roy Lichtenstein

Dot Scenes and Roy Lichtenstein

Students will create art inspired by Roy Lichtenstein.

Lesson Plan

Supplies Needed

Gather all the supplies needed to bring your craft ideas to life! From paints and markers to glue and scissors, our crafts section has everything to spark creativity and make every project truly special.

  • Graph Paper

Steps

  • Step 1

    Roy Lichtenstein was an American pop artist who was inspired by the art of the comic strip. Many of his works feature Ben Day dots, which is a technique of producing the effect of widespread color using only dots. It is named for the illustrator and printer Benjamin Henry Day Jr. who developed it in the late 1800s. Display images of Lichtenstein's art such as "Stepping Out," "Reverie," or "Sunrise," all of which display the Ben Day dot technique. Ask students to notice how it can appear that the background is colored in when in reality it is just composed of individual dots.

  • Step 2

    Dots or points are the building blocks of geometry. They indicate a position. When two distinct points are connected they form a line, and lines form shapes. Ask students to plot out a drawing using dots on graph paper, and then connect the dots into an image. They can then fill out the drawing by outlining it with a marker and then shading it with different colored dots within the graph paper's boxes.

  • Step 3

    The Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies (FAPE) is an organization dedicated to enhancing the United States' image abroad through American art. Have students reserach how Roy Lichtenstein's "Greene Street Mural" was gifted to FAPE and is being installed in the entrance to the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City. Have students look up this organization and some of the artwork featured.

Standards

ARTS: Speculate about processes an artist uses to create a work of art.

MATH: Create models that demonstrate math concepts and attend to precision.

Adaptations

Pointillism is a painting style that uses small dots to create images. Have students look at examples of this technique and research some artists who used this technique such as Georges Seurat and Paul Signac.

Students can calculate the number of dots in areas of their work; for example there are red dots in 5 boxes going down and 9 boxes going across, so there are a total of 45 red dots.