Art at Hosmer: Abstract Paintings with Primary Colors

Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Abstract Paintings with Primary Colors

Kindergarten artists have been learning about primary colors: red, yellow and blue. We used them for our shape robots, as well as our collage artworks inspired by Mondrian's paintings.

Sophia, Kindergarten (Segreve)

For our paintings, we began by looking at paintings by Franz Kline and Vasily Kandinsky to learn about abstract art. Students noticed the lines, shapes, and colors in the artworks. They noticed that sometimes the same lines and shapes reminded one student of a house, another student saw a ladder, and yet another student connected them to roads. Different students had different ideas and because the paintings are not showing us something we immediately recognize, everyone can have their own interpretation. They were not paintings of people or objects.

Vasily Kandinsky, Composition VIII (1923)

We learned that in abstract art, artists are not trying to show something from the real world. They use lines, shapes and colors to show an idea or feeling. Sometimes they are inspired by music. Students painted their own abstract painting, using lines and shapes that we have learned, with black paint. Students left plenty of white space inside and around their shapes.

The following class, we learned about our primary colors. We learned that primary colors are important because you cannot mix other colors to make them, but you can use them together to make new colors. To remember the primary colors, we looked at Superman's logo, because it has the three primary colors and these colors are strong and powerful, like Superman! Then we used the primary colors to paint inside the shapes and around the spaces in our painting. We focused on washing out our brush in between colors, so that they did not mix. Here are some of our finished abstract paintings, using lines, shapes and primary colors. They are currently on display in the connector hallway!