Like the second graders, the first graders also learned about Piet Mondrian so if you read my post about the second grade Mondrian project, some of this might sound familiar. This is a project that I got from Tasha Newton, a teacher I long-term subbed for, who does it with her students and I instantly fell in love with it.
For our second project of the year, we learned about my favorite artist, Piet Mondrian! Mondrian was a Dutch painter who lived from 1872 to 1944. He was a leader of the artistic movement 'de stijl.' "Mondrian, and the artists of De Stijl, advocated pure abstraction and a pared down palette in order to express a utopian ideal of universal harmony in all of the arts. (www.theartstory.org)" Mr. Mondrian is known for only using the primary colors (red, yellow, and blue). He also only use straight vertical and horizontal lines which created squares and rectangles. No diagonals! These were the focus of our lessons. We began class by watching OK GO's music video The Primary Colors. Then we watchedBroadway Boogie-Woogie (named after and inspired by one of Mondrian's paintings). The kids loved theBoogie-Woogie video! And if they were super quick cleaners at the end of class, we watched it a second time. Throughout the lesson I stressed the primary colors and how they were the building blocks to all the other colors. You cannot mix any two colors together to make a primary color. You have to go to Walmart or another store to buy them! The kids caught on pretty quickly to the primary colors. Then we turned our attention to vertical and horizontal lines. They seemed to struggle with this a bit more so it's something we're going to have to go back and review in a later project. We started by drawing a small circle somewhere on the page. This acted as the center of our web. We then drew straight lines out from that circle, all the way to the edge of the paper. I then showed the kids that the webbing that went between those lines dipped, like a hammock between two trees. After they had finished drawing their web, they drew a big ole' black spider. I made sure to emphasize that spiders have one BIG body and one LITTLE head with eight legs. Next, the students had to use a black crayon to trace all of their web lines, as well as filling in their black spider. Then we got to paint! Painting is my favorite medium so it's something that I do often with my students. Students were expected to paint using red, yellow, and blue. They also could leave some of the webbing white, like Mr. Mondrian's work. Lastly, they could use some metallic beads that I had to glue them onto their spider as eyes! This was a one day project that I really tried to push the students hard on. It was tough to finish the project in one day, and several students had to rush through their painting at the end. That being said, I am very happy with how they turned out!
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Devon CalvertHarmony and Consolidated Elementary Art Teacher in Milton, WI. UW-Eau Claire graduate. WAEA President. Apple Teacher. Archives
April 2018
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