How We Spent Our Summer Vacation - A is for Abstract

A starts Abstract, Art and August, so what better way to start the last month of summer than to learn about non-representational art?

After learning the difference between figural and abstract art, we created a little of both. When parents arrived they were challenged to tell what they saw in our abstract paintings. Of course, nobody saw the same thing.

Tuesday was Circle Day. We concentrated on that shape by making our own versions of Rachel Whiteread's 2012 Olympic poster design.

This was a great tie-in because the Olympics were ongoing at the time!

And you can't have Circle Day without a little Kandinsky!

Action Painting Day! You know we flung some paint...

...and got VERY messy...

...but the results were well worth it.


After painting our individual masterpieces, we each mixed our own color of chalk paint and did a collaborative action painting in the parking lot.

(Please try to ignore the tire marks. Nothing lasts forever, and alas, our art barely lasted an hour!)

Throughout the week we enjoyed A is for Art: An Abstract Alphabet by Stephen T Johnson. It was especially fun finding the letters in each work.

Superman is totally proud of his Nevelson sculpture. He used his super patience with the gluing and painting.

Finally. Rectangle Day! We learned about Josef Albers and spent some time planning our compositions using our favorite colors...

...then we assembled the finished products.

We ended Rectangle Day, and camp, with a quick Rothko composition.

I suppose I should have emphasized smudging and smearing a little more, but for 5-year-olds I think they did really well. 

Clearly, what I did NOT do on my summer vacation was blog about camp. One more to go. Maybe by Halloween?

Same Project/Different Kids

There are many things I love about teaching art, but right there at the top of the list is how individual children interpret the exact same project. There are developmental aspects, of course. We simply don't have the same attention span, fine motor or abstract thinking ability at four as we do at ten. And then there are the unique personalities that come into play.

This project was based on Kandinsky's Farbstudie Quadrate. The children were given oil pastels and told to make concentric shapes in various colors. They could pick the shape.

This little guy is four, and as you might guess, his name starts with M.

Here is how a six-year-old interpreted the project. She felt the need to put black lines between each area. She also carefully planned out her colors, making all the center dots first, then coming back and placing an oil pastel in each block for her next color. After she used those to make a second ring, she continued her process of placing all the oil pastels as markers then adding rings.

Here is the most traditional interpretation, by a ten-year-old rule follower.

And last the renegade. This young lady, age eight, had her own, fabulous agenda!