The curriculum for Kindergarten is as follows:
Note: Additional ideas can be found in the folders in the filing cabinet in the art closet.
Copyright Note: The text for many of the narratives on this site was taken from a wide variety of print and online sources. Please note that it is for background use for the Art Enrichment program only and should not be copied and distributed.
Lines
Visit ArtLex.com for a full definition of Lines. Lines can be expressive and they can show emotion - wild, jagged, stern, bold, timid, soft, swirling, loopy.
Piet Mondrian The Dutch painter Piet Mondrian was born in 1872. Like other abstract painters of his time, Mondrian's painting style changed over time from the realistic paintings of landscapes to painting representations of objects by using just lines and shapes and color. Eventually, he began to paint only basic geometric shapes divided by black lines. He used blocks of primary colors (red, yellow and blue) within the lines, but also left many of the geometric shapes within the lines white. For further information, visit KinderArt.com.
Joan Miro This Spanish artist, born in 1893, was a very prolific painter in the surrealist style who drew inspiration for many of his works from his imagination, from fantasy, and from his dreams. Miro did not classify himself as a surrealist painter - in fact, he did not put himself into any kind of box. Rather he used many different techniques drawn from many different styles such as Fauvism, Cubism and Spanish folk art.
Many of the forms in his paintings are distortions of animal figures and other common objects, as well as random lines (of varying strength of color and thickness) and shapes. The bright, primary colors on light backgrounds emphasize the playful and childlike quality of many of the paintings.
In his later life Miró worked in many other media, including etchings and lithographs, watercolor, pastel, collage, and paint on copper. He also created some very well known ceramic sculptures, including two at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) Paris building.
Activity Squint your eyes while you are looking at something familiar. Can you still see all the details of the object? Do you instead see only shapes and color? This is how Piet Mondrian began to paint in the geometric style of using shapes and color to depict the world he saw.
Posters Mondrian Kandinsky - Painting with Green Center #361 Miro
Books Lines by Philip Yenawine Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson Line and Tone by Paul Flux Lines by Jack Selleck Lines by Rob Court Straight is a Line: A Book About Lines by Sharon Lerner When a Line Bends ... a Shape Begins by Rhonda Gowler Greene, James Kaczman Using Color In Your Art! by Sandi Henry Miro by Nicholas Ross Miro by Jacques Dupin Click the SWAN Library System for more books.
Art lesson 1: Kandinsky, Wassily: A Little Kandinsky for All
Art lesson 2: Mondrian, Piet: Abstract Art: Line, Shape and Color
Art lesson 3: Mondrian Style Painting
Art lesson 4: Real or Surreal?
Art Lesson 5: Cut strips of black construction paper arrange on white paper for the line. Use oil pastels (only primary colors) to color in shapes. Make sure to leave white spaces.
Art Lesson 6: Art and Art Appreciation for Young Children
Collage
Collage - the word comes from the french verb “coller” which means “to glue.”
What is Collage? Collage is the art of gluing different materials onto a background to make a picture.
What are some of the things you can use to make a collage? - scraps of fabric, paper, shells, beads, dried seeds, pods, bottle caps, cardboard, newspaper, leaves, grasses, dried pasta & lentils, candy wrappers, aluminum foil, pictures from magazines, nuts & bolts etc.
Look at different artists that used collage like Henri Matisse and Robert Rauschenburg.
We also see collage everyday in some of the children’s books we read such as Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Lois Ehlert’s Feathers for Lunch, Eating the Alphabet and Snowballs.
Eric Carle (1929 - ) "Born in Syracuse, New York, in 1929, Eric Carle moved with his parents to Germany when he was six years old; he was educated there, and graduated from the prestigious art school, the Akademie der bildenden Künste, in Stuttgart. But his dream was always to return to America, the land of his happiest childhood memories. So, in 1952, with a fine portfolio in hand and forty dollars in his pocket, he arrived in New York. Soon he found a job as a graphic designer in the promotion department of The New York Times. Later, he was the art director of an advertising agency for many years.
"One day, respected educator and author, Bill Martin Jr, called to ask Carle to illustrate a story he had written. Martin’s eye had been caught by a striking picture of a red lobster that Carle had created for an advertisement. Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? was the result of their collaboration. It is still a favorite with children everywhere. This was the beginning of Eric Carle’s true career. Soon Carle was writing his own stories, too. His first wholly original book was 1,2,3 to the Zoo, followed soon afterward by the celebrated classic, The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
"Eric Carle’s art is distinctive and instantly recognizable. His art work is created in collage technique, using hand-painted papers, which he cuts and layers to form bright and cheerful images."
Quoted text from Eric Carle's own website.
For a profile of Lois Ehlert, please visit the Harcourt Trade Publisher's website.
Books The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle Snowballs by Lois Ehlert check the SWAN Library System for more books.
Art Lesson 1: Read the book Snowballs by Lois Ehlert. Make collage snowmen to enjoy all year long! Hand out large blue construction paper and 3 white circles to the students. Note: Ahead of time collect all sorts of things like sunflower seeds, bottle caps, twigs, nuts & bolts. The book will give you lots of ideas.
Art Lesson 2: Princeton Online's Incredible Art Department: Collage / Painting
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887 - 1986)
"Georgia O'Keeffe was born in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, on November 15, 1887. She focused on close, intense observation in her art. Her subject matter was primarily natural forms, such as bones, landscapes of the Southwestern United States, and flowers. "Shapes jump out at me," she said.
"O'Keeffe's art, often close-ups of individual objects, sometimes crossed over from realism to abstraction, because of her intense, precise way of looking at each object. She encouraged artists to "Try to paint your world as if you were the first man looking at it--The wind and the licat--and the cold--The dust and the vast starlit night...."
"Look closely at the following artworks by Georgia O'Keeffe: Red Canna, Shell No. 1, and Sky Above White Clouds I. While you can see from the titles that these artworks have their basis in actual scenes or objects, they are so closely focused and clear of other objects that they seem nearly abstract. On the other hand, some of her work, such as Oriental Poppies and her Jack-in-the-Pulpit paintings are more recognizable and realistic."
Quoted text from Crayola.com.
A realist might paint a refrigerator that one could immediately recognize as a refrigerator. An abstractionist painter, when asked to paint a refrigerator, might paint his or her idea of the essence of a refrigerator. That might be a rectangular or boxy form painted in icy colors--blue or white perhaps. The abstractionist's object was to express ideas through form or color, not to paint a realistic portrait of the subject or theme.
As early as the mid-1920s, O'Keeffe first began painting large-scale depictions of flowers as if seen close up, which are among her best-known pictures. One can certainly recognize them as flowers, but their giant scale is far from realistic. she has become recognized as one of America's most important and successful artists.
"Nobody sees a flower, really, it is so small. We haven't time - and to see takes time like to have a friend takes time.
"If I could paint the flower exactly as I see it no one would see what I see because I would paint it small like the flower is small. So I said to myself - I'll paint what I see - what the flower is to me but I'll paint it big and they will be surprised into taking time to look at it - I will make even busy New Yorkers take time to see what I see of flowers." - Georgia O'Keeffe.
Books Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert My Name is Georgia by Jeanette Winter Getting to Know the World's Greates Artists: Georgia O'Keeffe by Mike Venezia
Art Lesson Suggestions Art Lesson 1: Create gigantic flowers, like the artist Georgia O’Keeffe, using oil pastels and watercolor. Then crop into the painting to focus on a small part of the flower using pre-cut mats from construction paper.
Art Lesson 2: Bright, Bold Botany.
Art Lesson 3: Awesome O'Keeffe
Art Lesson 4: National Gallery of Art for Kids - Scoop on Georgia O'Keeffe