Kandinsky Kandinsky Kandinsky

I love Wassily Kandinsky.  The father of "non-objective" artwork has always appealed to my love of color.  Throughout all my years of teaching he is one of the few artists that I have taught every year.  This Russian painter was one of the first artist who painted purely abstact works.  He says his work was devoted to "inner-beauty, fervor of spirit, and deep spirtual desire".  He wanted his work to produce the same emotional connections that people feel to musical compositions.  Here are two of his famous works.  The first, a great representation of abstract work that my third grade students looked at and we talked about how it made us feel and what we thought of.  I then put on different songs that I felt evoked emotion  I love music by Eddie Vedder when trying doing this.  I may also put something on like "Shout", to have them make marks freely and quickly. 

The second famous painting of Kandinsky's are his Circles.  (I borrowed this lesson plan from Kacey Watkins Nobis), I talk to second grade students about how Mr. Kandinsky liked shapes and how colors looked together.  I then have them create their own concentric circles on an 8x8 piece of paper putting out markers, oil pastels, crayons, and highlighters, having them experiment with different materials.  I next laminate each circle and display together.

 2nd Grade Kandinsky Circles

 3rd Grade Abstract Expressionism