Kinders Meet Mondrian (and Mouse Paint!)
Kinder has been exploring some of my favorite parts of art: COLOR! We began by talking about the ever important and special primary colors. The primaries (Red, Yellow and Blue) are special because they are the 3 colors that you can mix together to get ALL of the other colors of the rainbow. We began by looking at an artist who used ONLY the primary colors (as well as only a few shapes) Piet Mondrian.
We began by watching (and learning the infectous lyrics to) Primary Colors by the band Ok Go. (If you are unfamiliar with this band- google them! They have some of the most fun, educational-friendly and creative videos for their music!!)
First we created a background inspired by the artwork of Mondrian, using squares of paper in Red, Yellow and Blue. Then the fun began! We were given the three primary color paints. We talked about how one way to mix colors is by "Double Dipping." We compared it to eating tortilla chips and salsa (and how it's NOT okay to double dip in those situations :) But with paint, it is okay. We picked up a little bit of red and then double dipped our brush into yellow. Painting on the paper, we created ORANGE! A little bit of blue and a bit of yellow made green! Blue mixed with red made purple! This kids loved this! The following week we read a book that I love by Ellen Stoll Walsh called "Mouse Paint." It is about three adventurous mice that learn about mixing paint and making the secondary colors, all the while avoiding the cat. If you have not read it, I recommend checking it out of your local library. It is a wonderful book!! We learned about how to make a mouse shaped body and ears with our painted paper, and experimented with collaging other pieces of paper to make details (I love the little tales and whiskers!) We then collaged our mice onto our Mondrian-inspired artwork from last week. So cute and a great project that hit on so many concepts!
