Cool Op Art Sphere Drawings

You very well may have seen these pop art spheres before, because they’re cool and they’re all over the old Pinterest. But they’re also the sort of project you can’t just look at and move on. They MUST BE TRIED. And try them I did. And they are every bit as fun to draw as they look.

If you aren’t familiar with the term ‘Op Art’, it’s short for Optical Art, which basically is art that plays with the ways your eyeballs see and process certain visual information. Your eyeballs can go al wacky if you look at some Op Art for too long. I fact, I’m not sure how people can deal with giant pieces of Op Art hanging in their homes without losing their minds.

Materials:

Paper (use thicker paper like White card stock)

Ruler

Pencil

Markers (use 2 colors for maximum awesomeness)

Trace around something round to make a circle or 3 on the surface of your paper. Any size(s) are fine, and draw them anywhere on the paper. I traced around a can of chickpeas. I love chickpeas.

Using your ruler, draw a grid of pencil lines all over the paper, avoiding the circles.

Next, draw grids of lines on each circle. You start with a straight line down the middle, then gently curve them as you draw lines out to the edge of the circle. This gives the circles the illusion of 3-dimensionality.

Your grids can be positioned any way. I made 2 that were ‘straight’, as compared to the background, and one was all wonky. See?

Now you can go in and color everything- I’ve seen these looking really cool in black and white, but I chose to get all superhero and use red and blue.

The final touch is to make ’em POP! Basically, you just take a pencil, and draw a shadow with the edge of the pencil point. Start lightly on one outside edge of the circle, darkening a little bit right at the edge, and lightening it a little as you go out, I like to smudge it with my finger.

If you have not yet discovered the magic that is pencil smudging, you will want to do so stat. Practice making marks and shapes with a pencil on paper and smudging them around with a finger. Such a cool technique.

So, anyway. Make these and then show me what you all made. Here. Just go ahead and post your photo to Facebook or Instagram and tag me. Facebook Instagram

Pin it: