Kandinsky--4th and 5th grades

The great Kandinsky...this where 4th and 5th grades began for our last quarter of 2011 with our focus on the masters of modern art.

We began as usual by discussing the artist, where he was from, and the idea of abstract art in general.  We took a look at several examples of his artwork.  For this lesson we used some of my husband's nicer art poster paper. It is a better quality and heavier than normal construction paper.  Starting with the basics of composition layout and balance of both line and color, it was interesting to see how each student took this idea in a different direction in the end--creativity at its best!

I had each student use a ruler as a straight edge and draw with pencil lightly to begin.  Learning to draw lightly so erasing is easier or perhaps not even necessary is something our classes have been working on all year.  Some employed protractors as well for a diversity of shape.  For the circles and curved shapes, yogurt containers work nicely.  The student was required to use a balance of lines--both long and short--and several shapes.  During the application of color in the form of oil pastel, I was looking to see that they balanced it by using like colors on both sides of the paper.  Like Kandinsky, they could blend colors as they swim into each other across the page.  The last touch required the student to draw carefully over each original pencil line in black oil pastel to make it pop!