Kandinsky II

Some more pixel paintings inspired by Wassily Kandinsky's Farbstudie Quadrate from 1913. These are of course a collage of many students' work. The pieces immediately above and below are by year 5 and 6 students. Each student was responsible for six shapes. In the above collage, students made all their six shapes the same, whereas below each child used a selection of different shapes. Please click on the images to see the details more closely.

This second set was created by year one students. Each child was responsible for a single shape. The students featured above chose circular shapes like Kandinsky, while the children below used a variety of other shapes. For more information about the process and Mr Kandinsky, please see my previous post here.

10 min Kandinsky

It's nice to have some meaningful but quick and easy art lessons up your sleeve. Here we imitated Kandinsky's famous "circle" art using a simple computer paint program. Small disclaimer: there's no guarantee it will take 10 minutes! It could take a little less or lots more depending on all the usual variables... But I can say that of the multiple students I tried this lesson with (ranging in age from 6 to 12 years old), they were all really engaged.

I briefly introduced the students to Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky and his Farbstudie Quadrate work from 1913. There's a small photo of Kandinsky and his original art at the bottom of this post. Using the computer paint program the students then made their own concentric shape patterns. The grid of circles above is the combined results of a year 2 class. Each child was responsible for one square in the matrix, pasted collectively here for your viewing pleasure! Immediately below is a collection of other shapes used by year 2.

The next collection (below) is by year 4 students. Click on the image to see all the nuances up close. I originally intended for all the year 4 students to make a grid of four concentric shapes, but had a bit of a brain freeze and asked some classes to make a grid of 4 and others a grid of 6... however with a bit of extra effort I still managed to stick them altogether in a rectangular shape : ) Down the track I'll post work from year 1, 3, 5 and 6 as well. 

Below is one student's example of what I'd intended for all of year 4 to create (all of year 3 and some of year 4 made these). Year 1 and 2 all created a single shape.

And below is a great example of a year 4 grid of six. All students in years 5 and 6 made grids of six.

And last (but not least), here's Wassily Kandinsky and the original work that inspired this lesson.

Value Scapes

I'm often surprised that some lessons are very popular with visitors to my site while other ideas that I thought might resonate with a wide audience have a lot less people viewing them. Perhaps "good" art lessons and ideas are just like "good art" in general - very subjective. That's fine though, art wouldn't be what it is without this innate characteristic. Anyway enough rambling... I was a bit surprised to see 10min Value Landscapes very quickly become my all time most popular post. I hindsight it may have something to do with teachers wanting to avoid messy painting clean-ups!

Here are a small selection of "value-scapes" a year 6 class created in computer class earlier in the year. They viewed the aforementioned post and I asked if they could see a way to extend the initial idea or put a new twist on it. In a break from tradition I've just posted a few that stood out for me.

10 min Value Landscapes II

A second instalment of 10 minute value landscapes. Not only do they look great, but they are super quick and easily made with even the most basic computer painting program. Of course they can be painted or drawn in real life too! Just allow quite a bit more time... This time around I asked year 3 students to make their sky colour different to the tints and shades of their mountains/hills colour—I like the effect this has had. You can make up your own mind by viewing the original lesson here.

Either Or

I find that incorporating choice is a great way to help students be enthusiastic about an art lesson—often the more prescriptive a lesson is, the harder it is to engage students. Another great benefit of lessons with choice is that the resulting art is obviously more varied and interesting to look at—it's a bit unexciting to see a classroom wall adorned with up to 30 very similar artworks.

Recently I was with this year 3 class for a session in the computer lab. This simple "doodlish pattern" task included two basic choices. The first step (and choice) was to cover their page/screen/image in either straight or curvy lines. The second step (and choice) was to paint in the resulting segments using either all cool colours, all warm colours or all tints and shades of a single colour. As you can see a few students felt even that was too restrictive!

10 min Value Landscapes

Like the Value Landscapes posted earlier this month, this lesson was inspired by Miriam at Arteascuola. However, these were "painted" with pixels on the computer rather than regular paintbrushes. Each year 4 student completed their own landscape in less than 10 minutes but still had valuable experience with using tone to create depth within a two dimensional artwork. 

After we observed and discussed the scenes created by Miriam's students the children took turns at making their own value landscape on the two available classroom computers while the rest of the class continued on with their set work. It was quick and easy but also meaningful for the children.