Recoloured Mondrians II

Reimagining the original. Year 1 drew their vertical and horizontal (ish) lines freehand with black oil pastels, and then used watercolour paints to fill the resulting spaces with any three colours plus white. I've tried this lesson previously with year 5, except they used rulers. You can see their versions here.

Unruly Mondrians

Year 1 made these wavy Mondrian-inspired abstractions with black oil pastels and watercolour paints. It's a straightforward lesson but the students enjoyed it, which has to remain a priority — not a lot of learning happens when there's no joy! I've previously tried more regular, ruled Mondrians with year 2 and recoloured Mondrians with Year 5.

Recoloured Mondrians

Year 5 students created these Mondrian-like compositions with any three colours of their choosing. A few could not resist Piet's classic primary colourway, but others relished the chance to re-imagine his renowned style. Like this recent year 2 Mondrian lesson, the children ruled their own grids with permanent markers, but in this case used watercolours rather than acrylic paint to fill in their resulting squares and rectangles.

Mondrian Compositions with Yr 2

After observing a number of Mondrian's famous primary coloured compositions, this year 2 class made their own grid of vertical and horizontal lines with permanent marker before filling in their resulting squares and rectangles with regular acrylic paint. 

Before I undertook this lesson I was having second thoughts about the possible “sameness” of each student's art, but I decided that if Mondrian himself can rework this idea again and again and again, then surely it's worthwhile that the students experiment with the same. And you don't have to look closely to realise that none of these are identical!

I especially asked the children to focus on balancing the colours within the composition — not too much or too little of any one, but not all exactly equal amounts either, not all in one area, and to use the white spaces too. I think they did a great job. I know they were really proud of their work : )