 |
| Mondrian |
I'm taking on a couple of extra classes for SCIART's Summer Art Camp and tomorrow's project will be collage based on work by Piet Mondrian. I looked into a couple of articles on his work and found this SFMOMA video to be very helpful. I really didn't understand his work until seeing the video. I've always known that he's all about design but this made it clear what he was looking for. SFMOMA video on Mondrian
He, of course, was all about simplifying what he saw. He systematically reduced the visible world into a series of vertical and horizontal lines with primary colors, black and white as his only design elements.
Tomorrow I'll talk about design with the kids by showing one of his works and talking about his choice of line and color along with the logic of how the paintings achieve a sense of balance. I hope that makes sense...it's late and my right brain may have left the room a few hours ago.
The fun will start when I give them an assortment of cut out cardboard pieces, watercolor paints and glue. I've cut 4x6 inch pieces of white cardboard out and painted it with absorbent ground. The ground accepts watercolor paint well so I'll have them use primary colors to paint them. This is a great way to reinforce the color wheel concept as well. Once those dry I'll have them place them in a grid and add black lines to finish. I haven't done such a "canned" project yet but these classes are bigger than the ones in our last two week session...
In my last painting class I introduced them to Jackson Pollock and they ended up painting the grass instead of the paper we laid out. They were adorable crawling around with their little paint brushes! We ended up using rice paper for monotypes. Last of all we attached yarn to make kites. Whew! One thing certainly led to another in that lesson!
Maybe we'll walk the campus and talk about grids. This is a mid-century modern school campus and a perfect candidate to teach students about reducing structure to simple linear elements. Hmmm
 |
| Rough sample of project |
Those kids sure are lucky ..... What a great teacher and lots of fun learning!!!
ReplyDeleteI love it Jackson Pollock kites and Modrian schematics!
ReplyDeleteYou have addressed learning on so many levels in these lessons. I love your focus on process with children (ex.when you allowed students to paint the blades of grass.) And how you were open to modifying the plan based on the students interest (ex. using rice paper). When "one thing leads to another," it usually means you are letting your student's interests and abilities lead your lesson--a hallmark of effective teaching.
In addition, I don't think that your prep for the Mondrian tiles represents a canned lesson at all. I think that it shows your awareness that the lesson needed to be simplified in order to be able to give students individualized attention.
With a tour of the campus it sounds like you are adding a little inquiry based learning into the mix--good way to stir it up a little!
ReplyDeleteThe Mondrian unit was a big hit. It was interesting to see the concept of his particular form of abstraction just click with the children. I talked about the underlying grid that architects use to design buildings and pointed out how that worked. The twelve inch tiles on the classroom floor made that simple.
ReplyDeleteYesterday I taught watercolor and arist's bookmaking (separate classes.). I had the older kids use either their sketchbook drawings, their imagination or things they found outside to inspire their paintings. I avoid copying photos as much as possible. It's harder for them to come up with imagery sometimes but better for them. Personally I want them to find their own artistic voice.
Some of them dashed off quick abstracts (my style:) and were starting to get into mischief. I had them think about the technique I showed them the day before to critique their work. (tracing the pathway their eye follows with their index finger.). I like them to put their work against a wall, stand across the room and point at the picture. Then they close one eye and follow it's movement with their finger. I've explained more to them about basic seeing but they enjoy this technique and it has so much to it!
Some of them were finished with that quickly so they went on to think about a artist's statement. They were just getting started when class finished. They definately wanted more of that. There was one little boy who won't be back next week and I could see how disappointed he was about that. I do think he'll go away with an open, curious mind and a tremendous desire to continue on as an artist.
Augh! Its with no apostrophe! I hate that! It's almost as bad as its counterparts your/you're or too/to!
ReplyDelete