Art Project-Piet Mondrian

This activity came from the book Discovering Great Artists by MaryAnn Kohl and Kim Solga. Mondrian grew up in Holland. He studied to be an artist. At first he painted landscapes and portraits. But after a visit to Paris in 1910, he began creating abstract art...geometric designs. He hoped his pictures would express thoughts and feelings.

I modified the directions from Discovering Great Artists just a bit. Here is how I did it.

I cut strips of black construction paper in advance.

Then I read aloud a little bit about Piet Mondrian to my class and showed some samples of his work on my smartboard. I then put a white piece of art paper on the white board and modeled the project. I glued strips of construction paper onto my paper to make a geometric design. Then I showed them how to color small sections to add visual interest. (We used markers, not paint.)

Then I had students return to their seats and create their own geometric designs after the style of Mondrian.

Here are some photos of their artwork. I think they turned out quite nicely.