Grades 5-8: Putting it in Perspective
Lesson One
Artist Spotlight: Lori Nix
Provide your students with full-page images of the artist’s work.
Click here for printable images.
Begin by watching and discussing this short video clip of interview footage with Artist Lori Nix. Click here to view .
Video Discussion Questions
Students may need to watch the film a second time before answering the following questions.
1. What were some of the materials that Lori Nix used in her dioramas, and where did she find these materials?
2. Why does she create dioramas? What has inspired her various themes within the dioramas?
3. Lori Nix said that she does not use any kind of computer manipulation to alter her photography. What does she use instead to create a sense of realism in her dioramas? (e.g. lighting, scale, detail, etc.)
Student Connection: The Scale Factor
Lori Nix creates complex dioramas and then photograph them. These images look like they might have been photographed at a real location and then manipulated in Photoshop, but in actuality they are completely staged and constructed on a small scale. The scale of something is the proportion that a representation of an object bears to the object itself. For example, if you were going to make a model of a twelve-foot high tree, following a scale of one inch to one foot, the tree would need to be twelve inches in your model. You can adjust the size of your model by adjusting your scale ratio. To create a smaller model, you could reduce your scale ratio to half of an inch for every one–foot.
Step 1: Create your own dioramas, representing real spaces such as your classroom, backyard, bedroom, etc. Begin by measuring the objects in the selected location. You may need to estimate if you are including buildings and trees in your model. Next, determine what your scale ratio will be and calculate the new measurements needed for the objects in your diorama.
Step 2: The scale of something not only compares the height of one object to another, but can also represent the distance between these two objects. Have students look at a map to locate the "scale" of the map (usually found in the corner of the map). Use a ruler to measure the distance between two points on your map. If the line is quite curved, use a string to determine the distance and then measure the string.
Artist information derived from: Cool Hunting
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