Musical Compositions

When Kandinsky first displayed his abstract artworks some called it the work of a madman; but one critic recognized it for what it was- pure visual music.  Kandinsky would often sit and listen to music imagining colors, shapes and lines drawing themselves before him.  He tried to capture this in the paintings he created.  Students studied the array of shapes and lines Kandinsky used to express the sounds he heard and discovered how abstract art can express an artists ideas in a different way.  After analyzing a few of Kandinsky's works, students were told they would be creating an abstract painting of sounds like Kandinsky as well.  To give them a better idea of how to approach this we watched the beginning of Fantasia to see how Disney animators interpreted the sounds they heard into shapes, lines and colors.  We also used the Music Lab on the smartboard to create a musical composition we could play together as a class (look under art games and great sites to find the link).  Finally, students listened to jazz music and painted with tempera cakes to create their own musical compositions.  Once the paintings were complete students drew images of jazz instruments to collage on top of their work.

Kindergarten Kandinsky

Kindergarten students explored the work of Wassily Kandinsky.  We learned what it means for art to be abstract (not to look like anything real) and identified different lines and shapes within his work.  Next we set out to create our own abstract art.  Using cardboard tubes and cut up pieces of cardboard we stamped black lines and shapes onto our paper.  Once the paint was dry we added color with tempera cakes