Optical Illusion Color Wheel

We will be using our mad math skills (fractions) to create this optical illusion (using line) that doubles as a color wheel we can use later. Plus it's a little Seussical too.

 

So get out your pencils and ruler and let's get to work. Here's the process:

Start by drawing a dot somewhere in the middle of your paper.  Then draw 3 lines dividing th space as equally as you can into thirds.

Pop Quiz!  We need to have 12 slices on our color wheel.  How many pieces do we need to divide each of our thirds into in order to get 12 slices?  

Next, divide each of those sections in half.

Then each of those sections in half!  Look how quickly we multiplied our slices.

Now we are going to VERY LIGHTLYwrite our color words in on our slices.  I hope you have practiced your ROYGBV!  The easiest way to get these in the right places is to start with ROYGBV (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple).  Those are our primary and secondary colors.  Do know which are primary and which are secondary?  Skip a slice in between each one.  Next we will fill in those tertiary colors. The name of tertiary colors always starts with the primary color name.

Now we are going to add some curved lines that will create our optical illusion.  First draw a curve in each of the ROYGBV slices that arches out.

Now draw a curve that arches in on the tertiary slices.  Make sure they all connect.

Now we do it again!  Curve out on ROYGBIV.

Curve in on the tertiary!  Make sure they connect!

Repeat until your whole paper is full.  Notice that some of the last ones won't go all the way around because we are working on a rectangle instead of a square.

NOW ON TO COLOR!

Watch this short video to see how we add color to help give us that optical illusion.  HINT:  The shading is the most important part!