Our Kandinsky Style Musical Art

Third and Fourth grade students joined our student teacher, Ms. Rowland, in creating music inspired artworks in the style of Kandinsky.  Using oil pastels, the students placed color, lines, and shapes on their papers as they listened to many different types of music.  Here are some photos of art in action!

Kandinsky: Inspired by Music

Wassily Kandinsky was a Russian born artist who lived from 1866 to 1944.  He was an abstract painter.  That means that he wasn't worried about making things look real to life in his paintings.  At one point in his artistic career, he decided to paint 10 "compositions", or music set to paint.  As he listened to the music, it inspired the lines, shapes, and colors he chose in each piece.  The following is an excerpt from Wikipedia:

Writing that "music is the ultimate teacher," Kandinsky embarked upon the first seven of his ten Compositions. The first three survive only in black-and-white photographs taken by fellow artist and friend, Gabriele Münter. While studies, sketches, and improvisations exist (particularly of Composition II), a Nazi raid on the Bauhaus in the 1930s resulted in the confiscation of Kandinsky's first three Compositions. They were displayed in the State-sponsored exhibit "Degenerate Art" then destroyed along with works by Paul Klee, Franz Marc and other modern artists.

While some of his artwork did not survive the Nazis, he did!

Here are some of the "Compositions" that did survive.

Composition #4

Composition #5

Composition #6

Composition #7

 

 Composition # 8

 

 Composition #9

 

Composition #10

Welcome Ms. Rowland!

We would like to offer a great big Harvest welcome to Ms. Kellie Rowland, an Art Education student teacher from BYU!  She comes from Southern California and is in her final year of university studies.  She will be working and teaching with Mrs. Watson in the Art Room for the month of January and most of the month of February.  If you see her in the halls, give her a big smile and a 'Hello'!

1st grade Mondrian style Paintings

The first grade classes learned about the famous painter, Piet Mondrian, and his particular style of painting.  Mondrian painted simple lines and shapes.  The shapes were almost always painted in primary colors.  He was searching for simple, harmonious balance in each of his paintings.

The first graders all agreed that it looked like they should be able to make their own Mondrian style paintings.  First, students placed lines on their paper.  Some of the lines went all the way across the paper.  Other lines only went part of the way.  All of the lines should have been straight.  Next, students painted only selected shapes in primary red, yellow, and blue.  Many shapes were left white.  The goal was to choose good shapes to paint, so the colors were spread out over the painting and not all bunched up together!  Here are some student examples...

Teacher made bowls

This year, I offered the teachers of Harvest Elementary the opportunity to build a clay bowl and learn about how to use the school kiln.  About 18 teachers and the principal, Mr. Bowman, came and we had a party!

2nd grade Warm/Cool Paintings

After learning our 12 colored color wheel, the second grade classes learned that some colors remind us of WARM things.  The warm colors are the reds, oranges, and yellows.  Other colors remind us of COOL things.  The cool colors are the greens, blues, and violets.

Next, we learned how to create a wet on wet watercolor wash.  The goal was to get the colors to swirl around on the paper before sinking in and drying, giving the page a swirly tie-dyed look.  To do this, first the paper is soaked, then the very wet watercolor is placed on it.  The colors swirl around and make interesting color blends and shapes.

After the warm and cool watercolor washes are dry, students look at the swirly shapes, looking for exciting things in the WARM colored paper, and calm things in the COOL colored paper.  It is a bit like looking for shapes in the clouds on a lazy summer afternoon.  Finally, the found images are drawn in using a black marker or crayon.

2nd grade Warm/Cool Paintings

The second grade classes spent some time learning about warm colors and cool colors, then painted one watercolor wash of each. After the paintings were dry, the students looked at the swirling colors using their imaginations in order to try to find exciting pictures in the warm painting, and calm pictures in the cool painting. The image above is my example of this project. As soon as they are finished, I will post collage images for each of the classes. If a student's painting is not shown, it is because it was either not finished in time for the photo shoot, or that student was absent for the project and/or photo shoot.

2nd grade - warm/cool colors

Now that we know all 12 colors of the elementary color wheel, it is time to organize them into warm and cool colors.

Warm colors are considered exciting and seem to jump out at us from the page.

Cool colors are considered calm and seem to recede (move back) on the page.

We can use what we know about warm and cool colors to choose the right colors to create the mood we want for our picture.