Relative Size refers to clues in the picture that help you figure out the size of objects.
Playing with relative size forces the viewer to imagine something much bigger or much smaller than seemingly possible.
Below is a drawing of a fireplace mantel. It has a candle and picture frames. You would imagine that the objects are only about 8"-12" high. Now when you place a human on the mantel that confuses the scene. Either the mantel is much bigger than you thought or the human is a small as a mouse.
Below is a drawing of a fireplace mantel. It has a candle and picture frames. You would imagine that the objects are only about 8"-12" high. Now when you place a human on the mantel that confuses the scene. Either the mantel is much bigger than you thought or the human is a small as a mouse.
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Below is a drawing of a building in Arlington Heights. You can tell from the size of the sidewalk and umbrella tables compared to the building that it's probably over 10 stories tall. Now when we add a human into the picture as tall as the building it makes you wonder if the building is much smaller or the human is monstrously big.
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 | Can you tell in this animation that something extra had to happen to make it convincing that the human was interacting with the building? I'll explain below. |
How did you do that?
The green screen app by Do Ink allows you to layer video over or under an image. You can record in real time using the camera mode or do what I did above. I recorded the student in front of green screen first which allowed them to crop, resize, and find the best placement over their drawing to create the illusion that they are as small as a mouse according to relative size.
To make it look like the human can stand behind the building and in front of the sky we had to import the scene twice. You'll see on my screenshot above that I sandwiched the green screen footage between duplicate images. Then, I erased the background from the top image using the masking tools in the app. Here is what it might have looked like if you were just viewing it alone. I can do this trick in the superimpose app as well and then import it, but it's not necessary since the Green Screen app has all the tools for erasing too.
Playing with relative size resources:
Take a look at this commercial. It's fun to see the inflatable gorilla set loose in the city. Does it's size seem to change when you compare it to the relative size of the objects around it?
This clip from the Disney adaptation of the book, BFG (Big Friendly Giant) makes everyone feel as small as a mouse when you see the world from the point of view of BFG.
A group of 4th graders used their profile drawings and green screen videos of 1st graders to play with relative size. We called this movie, Little Buddies. See this post for more info.
 | Another way to demonstrate that students understand relative size is using animation to show size change from foreground (bigger) to background (smaller) along with the other aspects of creating the illusion of depth. See this lesson for more info. |
Work on estimation by looking at relative size to build number sense.
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