The Artsy Fartsy Art Room: 2nd Grade Mondrian

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

2nd Grade Mondrian

Just finished up my Art History units with my classes. Which is really my favorite because I get to show them all of my favorites and I'm RIDICULOUSLY excited to teach it to them!

First up was Mondrian with 2nd grade. Which I know SNOOZE, but really, I love colors and primary colors so its a natural attraction for me! I got this lesson from a pinterest post from here and here.

Picked for Youth Art Month Display!

Day 1: Basic short PowerPoint of info about Mondrian. I always like to tell students how old the artist we are talking about would be if still alive today, puts things in a time frame for them and lets them compare to their grandmas and grandpas :) And then THIS AWESOME VIDEO. The quality isn't great but it is so cool! Its an animated Mondrian changing all of his paintings throughout his art life span! The biggest things we talk about is his use of primary colors and straight lines. To start the project I give reminders about how to get straight lines and let them loose. I liked the idea of them using different materials for each color, so they painted with one primary on this first day.

Day 2: Colored with two different materials for the last two primaries. And went over their lines in sharpie to be a little more like Mondrian. A few finished and I showed them 1:1 how to then turn their Mondrian into a "creature"

Day 3: Turned the basic Mondrians into creatures, I say "creature" because some took the route of MineCraft and dragons etc. The only rule was something with a face! They drew the shape of the creature on the white side and cut it out and used scraps of black, white, and other colors they needed to complete the creature. Last but not least naming it after Mondrian with either Mondrian or Piet!

Extension Day: Some classes took longer to complete this so if that happened I had a take home that day extension project of using precut strips and squares to create Mondrian style artwork. I also showed them really cool stop animation videos on YouTube. There is a TON! The one below is a favorite!