Born into a Dutch aristocratic family in Amersfoort, Piet Mondrian began his study of art in 1892 as a student at Amsterdam’s Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten. His earliest landscapes are rendered in an Impressionistic style but, possess the marked vertical and horizontal tendencies that foreshadow his mature paintings. Mondrian’s work began to show the influences of Cubism in 1910 after an exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam that included works by Picasso and Braque. In 1912, the artist moved to Paris where he continued to refine his style, continually exploring increasingly sophisticated compositions.

In his paintings, Mondrian strove to achieve a universal form of expression by reducing form and color to their simplest components. The artist termed his work “Neo-Plasticism” and believed: “it is the task of art to express a clear vision of reality.” Using only primary colors and basing his compositions entirely on rectangles, Mondrian painted increasingly stark, structurally harmonious compositions with an unrivaled chromatic purity.

Mondrian moved to New York in 1940 to escape the disruptions of World War II. Energized by the pace of city life, the artist was extremely productive and completed a large number of paintings. Mondrian’s late works, executed during his years in New York, use vacillating color and grid-like patterns to evoke the fast-paced rhythm of city streets. He is regarded by many as founder of abstract art.

K-3: Primary Mondrian: Students learned about Piet Mondrian and his use of primary colors and rectangles. They then created their own Mondrian by cutting and pasting Red, Yellow, and Blue shapes along with black strips of paper.

4-5: Mondrian Pets: Students completed a handout on Piet Mondrian. Here they learned about the life and death of Mondian. Students also had to pick out three paintings and compare and contrast which paintings they found more appealing. Students had to use that knowledge to create a large outline of an animal or pet and then add vertical and horizontal lines. These lines created squares and rectangles that were then filled in with Red, Yellow, and Blue oil pastel.

6-8: Mondrian Masks: Students spent a day in the computer lab to completed a handout on Piet Mondrian. Here they learned about the life and death of Mondian. Students also had to pick out three paintings and compare and contrast which paintings they found more appealing. Day 1. The students looked at Mondian paintings and created a 2-d Mondrian face. They used blocks of primary colors and black lines. Day 2. Students used plaster strips over a mask form to create a white plaster face. Day 3. (Still in progress) These faces will then be painted with the primary colors using their own painting style in the likeness of Mondrian.

Next time you are in the school hallways please look around to see all of  the beautiful Mondrian inspiration!

Peace, Love, Art

Mrs. Lieb

Martin Luther King Jr. Day By Mir Tamim Ansary

K-8: In art class we learned about Martin Luther King Jr. To remember this day the students traced their own hands on off white paper, colored in their hand with different patterns, lines, and designs and then carefully cut them out. These hands were used to represent themselves in a unique and personal way. Students where also to think about their dreams and how they would like their world to be in the future. Some students took the project even further and wrote on their hands “I have a dream”. Each hand was added to a wall display to create a school wide project. Students can walk by each day and remember their dreams!

We are all different but when we work together our differences can create something amazing!!

Newspapers

Magazines (school appropriate)

Plastic Yogurt cups

Plastic Lids: example: from butter, cool whip, sour cream containers, all sizes

Plastic grocery bags

Cardboard pieces

and possibly an old working blender (so we can make homemade paper)

Thank you so much!

Peace, Love and Art

-Mrs.Lieb

Peace, Love and Art

Mrs. Lieb

4-6 Winter Landscapes: Students looked at landscape paintings and talked about the placement of fore ground, middle ground and back ground. We also discussed how to tint a color. Students added white paint  into blue paint to create different tints of blue.  Students painted paper with these tints and then created a landscape showing a fore ground, middle ground and back ground.  Green paper triangle trees where added to so depth.

7-8 3-Dimensional paper sculpture: Students created a 2-d line drawing with colored sharpie markers. Then watched me cut their drawing into strips. The strips were made into the shape of tubes by wrapping the paper around a pencil. The tubes were then stacked and glued together to create a 3-d shape.

The K-3 painted paper ornaments were used to decorate the Christmas Tree for our Christmas Program. They made our Christmas Tree sparkle and shine along with all the children’s faces!  I hope you had a chance to attend and hear the story of Christ’s birth.

-Mrs.Lieb

K-3 Harvest Veggies: Students learned the difference between a 2-dimensional object and a 3 dimensional object. We discussed thanksgiving dinner and what kinds of foods were harvested during the “First Thanksgiving”.  Students first colored a 2-d coloring sheet and then created a 3-d veggie of their choice using newspaper and tape. Students painted their veggies using tempera paint.

4-6 3 Dimensional Harvest Veggies: Students learned about what vegetables are harvested in the fall months. They gathered in small groups to create a poster to discuss what veggies each person could come up with.  Students then created a 3-d veggie by shaping newspaper into a vegetable shape and held it together with tape. Veggies were then colored by using glue and colored tissue paper.

7-8 Broken Leaves: Students created a colorful watercolor leaf painting using watercolor markers. The artist Georgia O’Keefe was used as inspirations and a handout was also completed to further discuss her works of art.

What wonderful creations these projects are! We all should be thankful for what God has given us.

-Mrs.Lieb

K-3 Read: Where the Wild Things Are and created Shape Monsters by playing a Drawing Game

4-6 Played the Drawing Game and created Shape Monsters by using scratch art paper

7-8 Painted paper with Warm and Cool watercolors.  Then drew Shapes of Buildings using Black Silhouettes.

Stay Tuned…Pictures Will Be Added to the Art Gallery!

-Mrs. Lieb

Newspapers

Magazines (school appropriate)

Plastic Yogurt cups

Plastic Lids: example: from butter, cool whip, sour cream containers, all sizes

Plastic grocery bags

Cardboard pieces

Thank you so much!

-Mrs.Lieb

K-3 Line practice: drawing different kinds of lines, Leaf Prints and Leaf Textures

4-6 Georgia O’Keeffe: Up close Abstract Leaf

7-8 Georgia O’Keeffe: Abstract Leaves Watercolor design

Students learned about the Season Fall. We looked out side our windows to see what colors are now around us. Students even collected fallen leaves for me to use in art class. Thank you for the beautiful leaves! Another focus for our class was an Element of Art: Line. We talked about line and how different lines can be created and used in our artwork.

-Mrs. Lieb

K-3 Mini Me Self-Portraits and Self-Portrait Collage

4-6 Colorful Self-Portrait and Self-Portrait Collage

7-8 Manga Style Self-Portrait

Students learned that self-portraits are a representation of a artist which can be drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by the artist. Many of these creations are hung throughout the school for all to see. Students should be very proud.

-Mrs. Lieb