Mondrian Style Painting!

Piet Mondrian
Dutch Painter
1872-1944
He is best known for his non-representational paintings that he called "compositions", consisting of rectangluar forms or red, yellow, blue, white or black, seperated by thick black lines.


Materials needed:

• BIG white paper (heavy enough to handle paint)
• BIG black paper, pre-cut into long strips (approx. 1 inch wide)
• Tempera paint in red, yellow & blue
• Paint brushes
• Glue sticks
• Scissors

Directions:

1. Show the children examples of Mondrian's work.  This may be a good project for introducing the concept of PRIMARY COLORS (red, blue, yellow) vs. complementary colors (purple, green, orange)
2. Have them first glue strips down on the white paper, arranging them either vertical or horizontal, creating squares and rectangles.  Point out that Mondrian does not use diagonal lines.  Kids can cut the strips to fit them onto their paper.
3. Next, the kids can pick out a few squares or rectangles to paint, choosing between the 3 colors.  Reminding them that we are only using primary colors, not mixing the colors.  Encourage them to leave a few spaces white.

Using BIG paper really makes an impact.  The end result is always simple but awesome and ready for display!