The Art of Mathematics

Many of us might have had some problems with mathematics when we were in school. However, it is surprising to see how closely art and math are linked. There is a fascinating relationship. In fact, there are many famous artworks from artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and Wassily Kandinsky, that incorporated mathematical concepts in their artwork. 

Precalculus students in Mrs. Sandlin’s class at JCSD have combined the two academics. After a recent unit of study, students demonstrated their knowledge of Conics and Function Graph Transformations through an art project using the Desmos web site tools. Students from the class explained the project, how it relates to math, and what they liked best about it.

“I created a park scene using Desmos graphing calculator. I had to plot many different equations and inequalities in order to get my desired shapes and shading. I had to figure out how to move graphs based on equations and how to manipulate equations in order to create different shapes. I liked that it was creative and something other than taking a paper test. I've never used Desmos like that before.” - Hayden Pugh

“Basically what we did is we took different functions of math (for example, sin, cosine, rational function, parabolas, ellipses, etc) and changed x and y values to make a design of something of our choice. We also had to change the domain and range for some of them to fit into what we needed. It relates to math because we had to use what we knew from values of x and put them in to get the shape we wanted. Something I liked about it is that you could be creative and sort of make anything you want. It was a pretty open project that yes, had requirements, but we weren't told exactly what we had to make.” - Carlie Rupe

“I just wrote some equations until it looked like something. I sorta had an idea of what I wanted, but didn't really know how to get there, so I just experimented until I got it.”  Kole Haan

“I didn't really have anything particular in mind, but when we started messing around with the equations it just kind of came together.” Daniele Hughes

When asked “What did you like about it? What were your favorite parts?” Carson Foelske replied, “Being able to see how the equations we used changed in real time to create the pictures.”

These students have demonstrated the potential to be proficient in both math and art!