Explosion at the bottle factory

This lesson is designed to help explain the idea of Abstract art. It is from an Arts and Activities magazine.

Paintings of trees by the Dutch painter Piet Mondriaan show the development of realistic painting to abstract painting clearly. The red tree (1908) is a realistic painting, Mondriaan painted what he saw.

The grey tree (1911) is more abstract, but the shape of the tree can still be seen.

The apple tree (1912) doesn't look like a tree anymore, unless you see this one together with the former paintings.

You need:

1. black construction paper
2. scissors and glue
3. coloured paper
4. ruler and pencil

After showing the paintings of Mondriaan, kids have to make their own abstract artwork out of a realistic one. Children draw a line halfway their black sheet. Then they have to cut three or four double bottles out of coloured paper. Glue the bottles on the top piece of the black sheet. Cut the remaining bottles into pieces and glue them on the bottom of the sheet.

In the style of René Magritte

Made by Nikki, 11 years old

Rene Magritte is born in 1898 in Belgium. When Magritte is 13 years old, his mother commits suicide. She jumps in the river Samber and is found with her dress covering her face. This image has been suggested as the source of several paintings from Magritte: people hiding their faces with several objects.

In 1924 Magritte became friends with members of a surrealism group in Brussels: André Breton, Joan Miró and Salvador Dalí. These artists influence Magritte's work. In the end Magritte became famous with surrealistic paintings.

Magritte gave his paintings a realistic effect of surrealism. He painted simple objects, like a shoe, an apple, a pipe or a tree. Magritte took these things out of their ordinary environment and placed them in a special surrounding.

One of Magritte's most famous works is "La Trahison des Images" (The Treachery of Images). This is a very realistic painting from a pipe, with the text: Ceci n'est pas une pipe (This is not a pipe). The painting is not a pipe, but rather an image of a pipe. As Magritte himself commented: "The famous pipe. How people reproached me for it! And yet, could you stuff my pipe? No, it's just a representation, is it not? So if I had written on my picture 'This is a pipe,' I'd have been lying!"

By putting us constantly on the wrong track, Magritte forces us to think about art. Magritte thought it the task of an artist to place reality in a different context.

Nikki working on her version of Magritte

You need:

1. drawing sheets A3 size
2. brushes and water containers
3. old newspapers
4. tempera paint
5. (black markers)

Show Magritte's work and talk about surrealism. Ask children to tell what they see in those surrealistic paintings. Talk about realism and show realistic paintings. What are the differences between these two styles? How do you recognize surrealistic art? Show the painting The son of man and tell about the covered faces we'll see in a lot of Magritte's paintings.

Made by Kiki, 11 years old

Children sketch a portrait, just like Magritte did. It doesn't have to be someone special, just a person. Instead of an apple, they choose a present-day object to cover the face. This object has to be about as large as a face, so a piano or a coin can't be used! Options: an Ipod, cell phone, candy or something. When sketching is finished, the drawing has to be painted. When necessary, students can outline the covering object with a fineliner.

Made by Jetse, 12 years old

Cats like Rosina Wachtmeister

Rosina Wachtmeister (1939, Austria)

Wachtmeister (1939) is an Austrian artist who is specialised in making collages with various. She uses often gold or silver metal paper in her work. The early work of Rosina Wachtmeister are sculptured puppets. She used these puppets in her own puppet theatre.

In 1974 Rosina Wachtmeister moved with her husband to Capena, near Rome. She gets inspired from daily things: the silence of Capena, the sun, her cats and music.

We look at some paintings from Wachtmeister and we name the distinctive characteristics:

1. she uses silver in every paiting
2. faces are divided into colour patches
3. she uses often warm colours
4. backgrounds are decorated cheerfully
5. figures are outlined with black or coloured lines
6. eyes are very expressive because of those (black or coloured) lines

You need:

1. white drawing paper A3 size
2. tempera in different colours, including silver
3. brushes
4. newspapers
5. jars with water
6. tissues to clean and dry the brushes

Students draw with pencil a quick sketch from one or more cats on their sheets and start painting right away, considering the characteristics of the style of Wachtmeister: silver paint, big eyes, warm colours, divided faces etc. Outlining the figures has to be done also with tempera and a thin brush. This has to be the last chore, of course. So you get a good separation between the foreground and background and you can remove some stains. If the paintings are dry, we stick them on a matching background sheet. And of course we sign our work, just like Wachtmeister, with a black signature!

Birthday calendar, like Wayne Thiebaud

You need:

1. white sheets A4 format
2. colour pencils

At the beginning of a schoolyear, our students make their own birthday calendar. This is a good reason to show and discuss some paintings from Wayne Thiebaud. Each child draws his own birthday cake, surrounded by his birthdate and first name. Arround this drawing they have to draw a frame as broad as the ruler and draw festive stuff like little cakes, lollipops, candy, little flags, presents etc.

Opart like Vaserely

You need:

1. white paper
2. markers
3. ruler and pencil
4. charcoal

Show the children works from Victor Vasarely. What do you see? Do you recognize the optical illusion? How did Vasarely make this? Do you see the shapes coming out from the background? What colours and shapes has been used? We call this opart or optical art. Tell children they are going to make an opart drawing today. Every child becomes a white sheet of paper and starts with outlining one or more round objects like a lid or a dish. Draw curved lines from above to below and from the right to the left. Draw a grid pattern behind the circle with squares from 1,5 to 1,5 cm. Teach children how to do this, it appeared not to be that easy...:) When finished, colour the squares in the circle like a checkerboard. 1. Go slow and think first, a mistake is easily made. 2. No two colours should be right next to eachother (side to side) 3. Colours should always be corner to corner with eachother To accentuate depth, we used a piece of charcoal and drew a shadow around the ball.

Waterlilies like Claude Monet

You need:

1. tissue paper in different colors
2. white drawing sheet (A4 size)
3. glue

Claude Monet was a French painter and founder of French impressionist painting. Impressionistic paintings are a kind of snapshots, giving a quick impression. Up close it will only show spots and streaks; at a distance you see that these spots together represent an image.

After viewing some waterlily paintings by Monet, children will make their own waterlilies using tissue paper. To get the spotty Monet effect, the tissue paper should be torn into pieces. For the background students tear pieces of blue and green tissuepaper and paste them on their sheet. 

The flowers are also made of torn pieces of tissue paper. It is important to work from big to small: first the background, then the pieces of the large flowers, and over them the heart of the flower. 

Self portrait like Modigliani

Amedeo Clemente Modigliani (1884 - 1920) was an Italian painter and sculptor. Modigliani's paintings are included in expressionism. He painted nudes and highly stylized portraits. He used stylized shapes and painted long, oval faces with elongated necks and long limbs, allowing the characters express a melancholy mood. The skin is often rusty and all forms are outlined. Eyes, noses and mouths in the faces are not the 'right' place, but still offer a balanced and credible image.
View with the children a number of paintings by Modigliani and discuss the salient features:

• faces are elongated
• faces are often skewed
• use of warm colours
• the shapes are outlined in black

You need:

1. black constructionpaper A4 size
2. oil pastels
3. coloured paper for background

The students get a sheet of black paper and divide it into eight sections. First middle vertically, then horizontally through the middle. Then the horizontal halves have to be halved again. Children have to draw an oval, starting at the middle line to slightly above the center of the top section. The neck lines run to the middle bottom section, and from there the shoulder line is drawn. Eyes have to be drawn higher than "normal" portraits and the mouth lower. In between the nose, which is also longer than usual.

After sketching the pencil lines have to be traced with with black oil pastel. Then everything has to be coloured. Watch the black lines: do not touch them with a different colour, it will get messy! Do the colouring carefully, especially in smaller components like eyes and mouth. If a lighter crayon spots black, clean it in a paper towel. Colour the background until you don't see any black. Paste the work on a matching background.

Made by students of grade 5

Just like James Rizzi

Houses in the style of James Rizzi, group work, grade 6

James Rizzi was born in 1950 in Brooklyn. He studied art in Florida (Gainesville), where he started experimenting with printing, painting and sculpting. Rizzi’s work often shows his birthplace New York. His paintings look sometimes childishly naive, with the bright colours and brilliant gaiety. In the art press Rizzi is often described as "Urban Primitive Artist '. Rizzi himself says he is influenced by Picasso, Klee and Dubuffet.

Show some paintings of Rizzi and discuss the characteristics:

• bright colours
• no gradations within colours
• evertything is outlined with a black marker
• houses have human faces/characteristics
• the artwork is full and busy
• background is full too

You need:

1. white drawing sheets A4 size cut lengthwise
2. markers
3. scissors and glue
4. blue cardboard A1 size for background

Students draw a house in Rizzi style, a house with human characteristics like cloths, limbs, eyes etc. It must be a house, that means students must not draw a square human being! This can be done by drawing basic elements of a house in any case, like windows, doors etc.
Colour the house with bright colour markers. Outline the details with black fine marker. Cut the house and outline it with a black marker. Draw things in the air: stars, a moon, globe, hot air balloon, ufo's etc. Look carefully at Rizzi's paintings to discover what he has made.
To make a group work, every student has to draw one house at least. Make a composition of all those houses and paste them on blue cardboard. Start pasting with the second row of houses, so the first row can be pasted overlapping the second one. Be sure you don't paste two houses with the same colours next to eachother.
Paste the stars and ufo's on the background.     

Rizzi houses group work, grade 5