Kandinsky Inspired Artworks

Kindergarten Calder Inspired Creations

After studying about artist Alexander Calder, Kindergarten students cut out shapes in primary colors and arranged them intuitively on their work. They then created various lines in the background using a ruler. Their works were on display for Open House and Big Art Day.

First Grade Calder Inspired Balloons

First Graders created abstract landscapes with balloons based off of their study of Alexander Calder and his work Balloon 13.

Third Grade Alexander Calder Paintings

Third Grade created paintings loosely inspired by artist Alexander Calder. Each student rolled a dice to determine how many circles, wavy lines, and starburst shapes to their work. They then painted the lines black. Once dry, they filled in the rest of the area with primary colors. All of their pieces were displayed together as one large artwork.

Kindergarten Kandinsky Inspired Art

Kindergarten created abstract paintings based on the works of Wassily Kandinsky. They first used cardboard tubes to stamp black circles all over their paper. They then added implied texture by printing small circles on top with bubble wrap and peach paint. Once these had both dried, the water colored the inside of the circles and painted over the rest of the white space. The use of water colors on top of the peach tempera paint allowed the bubble wrap design to still show through.

Primary Colors Project: K-2

 

A while back, the students created artwork collaboratively using only shapes and primary colors. They first painted white construction paper in sections. Once it was dry, they cut out various shapes on the paper. They then glued the paper to a black background. Once the pieces were laminated, we assembled them with tape and mounted them around one of our classroom doors. These went along with our lessons over Piet Mondrian.

Piet Mondrian Paintings: Fifth Grade

All grades have been learning about the famous artist Piet Mondrian to reinforce the concepts of lines, geometric shapes, primary colors, and to incorporate art history. As a part of their study, Fifth Grade painted pictures inspired by Broadway Boogie-Woogie. Each student started their painting by drawing two parallel lines from the top of the paper to the bottom with the aid of a ruler. They then repeated this step but horizontally. They then continued by drawing other parallel lines off of those two main lines. After designing the layout of their paintings, they painted in the squares created by the intersections of the parallel lines with two different primary colors. The remaining lines were painted in the third primary color.

Piet Mondrian Paintings: Third Grade

All grades have been learning about the famous artist Piet Mondrian to reinforce the concepts of lines, geometric shapes, primary colors, and to incorporate art history. As a part of their study, Third Grade painted pictures inspired by Composition London. Using rulers, the students drew vertical and horizontal lines and painted them black. They then painted in the squares and square rectangles created by those lines with primary colors leaving some shapes white.

Piet Mondrian Collages: Second Grade

All grades have been learning about the famous artist Piet Mondrian to reinforce the concepts of lines, geometric shapes, primary colors, and to incorporate art history. As a part of their study, Second Grade created a Mondrian inspired collage with primary colors, horizontal and vertical lines, and geometric shapes. The students got a piece of construction paper in the three primary colors. They two of the papers in vertical strips. With one set of the strips, they cut them into small square rectangle pieces. They glued the strips into vertical and horizontal lines on the third piece of paper. They then glued the rectangular pieces onto the intersections of those vertical and horizontal lines. This lesson was loosely based on New York City I, 1942.

 

 

Piet Mondrian Collages: Kinder

All grades have been learning about the famous artist Piet Mondrian to reinforce the concepts of lines, geometric shapes, primary colors, and to incorporate art history. As a part of their study, Kindergarten created two different Mondrian inspired collages. The first collage was to glue white strips of paper vertically and horizontally on black paper. They then glued primary colored squares and square rectangles on the white strips. On the second collage, they glued black strips of paper on narrow white paper. They then glued primary colored squares and rectangles of larger sizes in the white spaces. Composition II in Red, Blue, and Yellow was the inspiration for these pieces.

Second and Third Grade Murals

On Fridays, we have "Collaborative Art Fridays." Monday through Thursday, I teach the main focus lesson and the students create artwork individually. Each group will visit art on average about one Friday per month according to our rotation schedule. So, on these days, the students work on a collaborative project that incorporates the art elements we have been working on during that month. For this lesson, the students worked to trace various geometric shapes on white bulletin board paper. They then connected the shapes to one another and the edges of the paper with various lines to create organic shapes. They then painted in the shapes. As they worked, we talked about balance and the need to space the colors out in work like this. These really add a pop of color to our neutral back hallway!

Warm and Cool Waves: Fifth Grade

Fifth Grade demonstrated their knowledge of warm and cool colors by creating wave patterns. They first used a ruler to create a grid. They then drew waves on top of the grid. As they did this, we reviewed the differences between geometric and organic shapes. The students traced their lines in black marker. They then colored the grid in a warm color pattern. They then colored the waves in a cool color pattern.

Cool and Warm Hands: Third Grade

Third Grade students created patterns with geometric shapes and cool/warm colors. To integrate math, students had to find either a square or circle that covered the most area. They traced that shape and then found the same shape but with less area. They traced the shape and then repeated this step until they got to the shape that covered the least area. Once their shapes were traced, they traced their handprint in the middle. They then colored the geometric shapes in a pattern of either warm or cool colors. They colored the handprint in the opposite set of colors. For display, I grouped them into warm and cool colors.

A Rainbow of Friends: First Grade

First Grade read A Rainbow of Friends by P.K. Hallinan as a connection to creating our class Social Contract and as an introduction to the color wheel, primary colors, and secondary colors. Each student used various shaped foam stamps to paint shapes in color wheel order. The next week, once the paint was dry, they used multicultural markers to add heads, arms, and legs to the shapes. They then added basic facial features, hair, and shoes to match the shapes.

3D Shape Sort

This lesson is from a while back but I forgot to post about it. When we were learning about the attributes of 3D shapes, we visited the computer lab to create Tree Maps to sort real life examples of those shapes. The students drew there on lines for the Tree Map, used the search feature in the clipart for the 3D shape headers, and then looked through the various clipart images for examples. They had to use the skill of "click, hold, and drag" to move the clipart.

Marshmallow and Pretzel Shapes

The students used marshmallows and pretzels to model 2D and 3D shapes. As they built the various shapes, we talked about the similarities and differences between them. We talked about how many edges and vertices each had. We discussed what shapes rolled, stacked, and could slide.

3D Shape Sort

The students created Tree Maps on the computer using Pixie 2 for 3D shapes. After adding the 3D shapes under each branch, they then searched through the stickers to find real life examples of the shapes.

Pumpkin Shapes

While learning about the attributes of shapes, we discussed that the attributes stay the same no matter how large or small you make that shape. The students explored this concept by making larger squares, square rectangles, and triangles out of smaller pattern blocks. They then used paper pattern blocks to make a pumpkin shape. As they worked we discussed how many sides and vertices each shaped had.