2nd grade art lesson - Piet Mondrian

We are fully engaged in art lessons in our homeschool. Buttercup and I love learning about different artists and new techniques.

We recently read about Piet Mondrian and tried some art work of our own using some of his techniques.

Our lesson included:

• Reading a simple biography. (When I say simple, I mean a book written for children)

• Looking at the artist's work in a book or online.

• Discussing the artist's technique and what we like/dislike about it.

• Doing a word search puzzle which we found at www.makingartfun.com (This has become one of our favorite websites! More about them later)

• Making our own Mondrian inspired art work.

• Visiting a museum to see his work in person. Read how we make museum visits fun!

 

 

Mondrian Inspired art work

 

Materials:

• 1 sheet of white computer paper
• a few sheets of construction paper in black, red, yellow and blue
• Ruler
• Pencil
• Scissors
• Glue

 

Instructions:

• Measure and cut a few strips of black construction paper in different widths. We used 1/2 inch, and 3/4 inch strips
• Place your strips on the white paper. Arrange them any way you want.
• Cut squares and rectangles in different sizes to place between the strips over the white paper.



 

 

About Piet Mondrian

Piet Mondrian was born in Amersfoort, Netherlands, in 1872. At a very young age, his father Pieter introduced Piet to art. In 1892, Mondrian entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Amsterdam as a teacher. While there, he continued to work on his own paintings, most of which were landscapes and pastoral images of Holland. He was initially influenced by the pointillist and fauvist movements. However, in 1911, Mondrian discovered Cubism which led him toward abstraction. As early as 1912 when he painted The Sea, it can be seen that his art work began to be dominated by geometric shapes.  Mondrian continued to explore abstract forms eventually developing a style he called neo-plasticism.

It was during his time in Paris after the war, where he painted one of his most famous paintings, Composition with Red, Yellow and Blue.  Piet Mondrian died of pneumonia in New York City on February 1, 1944.

Happy Homeschool Adventures!!

2nd Grade Art Lesson - Henri Rousseau

Buttercup and I like to do a lot of art projects in our homeschool and with my guidance, I let Buttercup choose the artists she wants to study. So off to the library we go in search of a book in The World's Greatest Artists series. Buttercup knew she wanted to learn more about Henri Rousseau (she was already familiar with his work). Much to our surprise, Rousseau is not one of the artists in the series. We did find another book about him that seemed geared toward children, so we checked that one out from the library. It turns out the book was more of a novel and while it did mention Rousseau it wasn't really what we wanted.

I turned to the internet for some information about Henri Rousseau and was able to come up with a pretty fun lesson plan for Buttercup.

Our Lesson Plan:

• Research the Rousseau and his work
• Find out where Rousseau is from, when he lived, what his artistic style is
• Discuss with your child the life and works of the artist
• Look at some of his/her art work on line
• Choose a piece that your child would like to do on her/his own
• With the appropriate materials in hand, let your child do her own artist inspired art work
• If possible, visit a museum to see some of the artist's work in person.

Buttercup chose Tiger in a Tropical Storm.

We started out with three sheets of white paper. On the first one, Buttercup drew the backgroud scene, the trees, branches, and leaves.

She then colored that using oil pastels (presently her favorite medium). One the 2nd sheet of paper, Buttercup drew the tiger. And on the 3rd sheet, she drew the big leaves that are in front of the tiger.

We then put the whole thing together to make the tiger kind of pop out of the page while still being hidden by the big green bushes.

Here's a short biography about Henri Rousseau.

Henri Rousseau was a French painter born in 1844.
Rousseau was born to a poor family. His father’s debts even caused the family to lose their home at one point. Rousseau served in the army for four years before going on to become a customs officer at the edge of Paris. He worked until he was 49, painting on the weekends, until he could retire and focus fully on his art. He gave painting lessons, performed as a street musician, and did other odd tasks to earn enough money to live as he painted.

He was completely self-taught and this showed in his work. He wanted to paint flawless, realistic works but a naivety, a simplicity, persisted that he couldn’t shake. The traditionalist painters mocked him but he remained confident in his talent.

Many of Rousseau's paintings are depictions of tropical forests, fauna and flora. The problem is that Rousseau was never at any of the places he painted. All of his ideas came from books. This made his paintings unrealistic because, in his paintings, he uses animals in the same scene that would never be found in the same habitat. He also paints plants and fruit from different parts of the world together in one scene. For example, in Tiger attacking buffalo, Rousseau paints bananas growing upside down from trees.

All in all we had a lot of fun with this art lesson.

Happy Homeschooling Adventures!

Paper Weaving

I just love this activity because it is such good fine motor skills practice. And truth be told, kids could always use practice in using scissors safely and accurately.

Paper weaving is a craft in which thin strips of paper are woven together to create a colorful pattern. Weaving is a popular technique that is fun while also helping children develop dexterity and coordination. Weaving also reinforces previously learned colors and patterns. The nice thing about paper weaving is that anyone can do it.  Younger children can make simpler patterns using one color, while older kids can create more complex and interesting patterns with lots of colors, patterns and textures.

We started by choosing our colors. Buttercup chose, purple, light pink and a darker pink. We used a black sheet of construction paper as our base.

Materials needed:

• A few sheets of construction paper
• A ruler
• A pencil
• Glue

Instructions:

• Choose the colors you want to use. To make it easier for us, we chose black as our starting point, the canvas if you will. Then we chose 3 more colors,  you can choose 1, 2 or more.
• Fold one paper in half.
• Mark a 1/2 inch line across the top to the paper (not on the fold side, the side that is open) This line is a guide so  your child know not to cut past that point.
• From the folded part, start making a cut all the way up to the line you just made with a pencil.
• Make the cut as wacky as you want. This will make for a nice pattern.
• Continue making cuts across the paper about 1 inch apart.
• Cut 1 inch strips of the other color(s) (I pre cut these for Buttercup, but your child can cut them)
• Open the paper that you previously cut.
• Begin weaving a strip of paper through the pattern, over and under, over and under.
• When you get to the end, put a little glue on both ends to secure the strip in place.
• Continue this pattern until you've filled in the whole paper.
• Remember, if you started with your strip under, the next strip  has to be over.

Marking and cutting the base paper.

9x11 sheet of construction paper

Paper folded in half



Marking 1/2" from top

Making a pencil mark across

That's how it should look

Buttercup making cuts

The cuts can be whimsical

Weaving the strips of paper

Almost done

Masterpiece!

Check out this video that shows you step by step. This is not my video but I liked it even though I cannot hear what the woman is saying (my audio is not working). But you don't need to listen, just watch. It's very good. It looks like she uses a magazine cover as her base. It's interesting and I might try that next time.

There you have it. A simple, inexpensive craft project for you and your kids!!

2nd Grade Art Project - Colored Sand Vases

A while back I had seen these really cute vases made with colored sand and I knew I wanted to try to make them. I started collecting glass jars and other glass containers that would have been thrown out (reuse and recycle!). When we finally had the containers I couldn't find the magazine or website that had the intructions to make the colored sand vases. So I pretty much had to figure it out on my own, but I have to say Buttercup and I are very happy with the results.

What you'll need:

Tacky glue
Colored sand
Glass jars
Plastic spoon
Paint brushes

Once we had our work area set up, Buttercup chose the colors she wanted to use. I poured glue in a disposable plastic container and Buttercup used a paint brush to "paint" the glue on the glass jar. Since we were making stripes, I gave Buttercup a stopping point where she shouldn't put glue. Once the area of the jar that we wanted to color was covered with glue, Buttercup used a plastic spoon to sprinkle sand over the glue covering most of it. I helped by shaking off the excess sand. Then we moved on to the next stripe repeating the process.

We finished on vase and were feeling pretty confident so we decided to make a pattern on the next one. Buttercup chose to make a sun. This time I made the sun shape with the glue and Buttercup sprinkled yellow sand on it. At the bottom of the vase we used green sand for "grass". On the remaining portion of the vase we used light blue sand for the "sky".

 Happy Homeschooling Adventures!!