Kindergarten Kandinskys

KThis lesson has become a Kindergarten "rite of passage" in the art room.   I use it nearly every year, almost always with fantastic results.  I recently was pleased to discover that when a group of first and second graders saw the painting "Squares with Concentric Circles," they immediately recognized it and remembered this lesson.

Kindergarten artists created their own Kandinsky-inspired circle drawings using oil pastel and liquid watercolor.

Matisse Collages

Third and fourth grade artists learned about Henri Matisse. They looked at several examples of collages by Matisse and identified the difference between geometric shapes and organic shapes. They thought about creating unity between their color choices and their shapes.

Inspired by Matisse- Third and Fourth Grade Collages

Third and fourth grade artists looked at examples of collages by Henri Matisse.  

We also watched two short videos about Matisse.  The first is a collection of Matisse's collages with a song by Greg Percy.  The second is a beautiful clip of Matisse working with paper cutouts. 

Students chose themes based on the collages and began working with colorful paper scraps. 

Kindergarten Kandinksys

Kindergarten artists looked at Kandinsky's painting "Squares with Concentric Circles."  They used oil pastels to draw circles using many bright colors.  Then they observed the watercolor resist technique while they painted over their whole picture with liquid watercolors.  

Some of the finished pieces are on display at the Student Art Show at Helen Day Art Center in Stowe.