Be Square . . . Make a Mondrian Inspired Masterpiece!
Dutch painter, Piet Mondrian, is best know for his work that used primary colors, white and black in simplified lines and shapes on canvas. He believed highly simplified art could model a harmonious ideal world.
Mondrian was born in 1872 in the Netherlands. He was exposed to art at a very young age. His father was an art instructor and his uncle an artist. His early paintings were mainly landscapes. In 1911, Mondrian moved to Paris. It was in Paris, influenced by Cubist style artists like Picasso and Braque that his work became more abstract and began to incorporate more geometric elements. Later, in the Netherlands, Mondrian's art was influenced of the primary color paintings of artist Bart van der Leck. After world war one, he returned to Paris and began creating the grid-based abstract painting for which he is know. Mondrian died in 1944 in New York City.
ART KIDBIT: PRIMARY COLORS
Primary colors are RED, YELLOW and BLUE. If you mix 2 primary colors, you will create a secondary color. (For example- red + yellow = the secondary color orange.)
Art Project:
Mondrian looked at the world around him and broke down what he saw into very simple geometric shapes and colors. Kids, you can do this too! Look at something and squint your eyes. Notice how the small details disappear? When you squint it's easier to see the basic shapes and colors.
What you will need:
graph paper
pencil
ruler or something with a straight edge
black marker with a wide tip
red, blue and yellow paint (or red, blue and yellow markers)
Instructions:
1) With your pencil and ruler, draw three vertical (that's a line that runs up and down) lines on your sheet of graph paper. The lines do not need to be equally spaced on the paper.
2) Next draw three horizontal (side-to-side) lines on your sheet of paper.
3) After drawing your lines, select some of the spaces and paint them with your primary colored (red, yellow and blue) paints.
4) After your paint has dried, draw over you pencil lines with a thick black marker.
Vocab Quiz . . . Kids, Can you find parallel and perpendicular lines in your masterpiece?
Want to learn more about Mondrian?
For biographical information about Mondrian and to see some of his art-
www.pietmondrian.com
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