Create Your Own Mondrian Masterpiece

Piet Mondrian wanted to find the heart of the things around him so that he could paint it onto his canvas. As he grew older, he art became simpler. The result, for you, is an easy-to-copy style. Today, learn to make your own Mondrian-inspired painting.

Supplies Needed:

Heavy sketch paper (white)
Paints in red, yellow, blue, and black
Paintbrush
Water (for rinsing the brush)
Ruler
Construction paper
Scissors
Pencils

Begin by drawing lines on your paper with your pencil. Use your ruler to make sure the lines are straight horizontal or vertical by measuring from the sides and marking several points along the line before drawing it. Use your imagination to decide where to draw the lines.

Next, fill in some of the squares formed by your intersecting lines with red, yellow, or blue paint. Make sure to leave some of the squares white. If your colors aren’t perfectly within the lines, that’s okay; you’ll paint your black lines next and they’ll cover the edges.

You will now paint over the pencil lines with black paint. The other colors need to dry first and in the meantime, you can make a stencil for painting the black lines. This will make them look crisp.

Cut a sheet of construction paper in half. Place the outer edges together. The edges that you just cut will be to the outside now. Cut a strip from another sheet of construction paper and then cut the strip in half. You’ll use this strip to connect the two halves of your construction paper.

You want to leave an opening about half an inch thick so measure a half an inch somewhere in the middle of the strip and mark it off. Do the same to the second strip. Now tape one strip to each end of the half-sheets of construction paper with the straight edges faces into the gap.

Mark the center of the gap by drawing a line on each strip. Now line up the pencil lines on your painting with these lines and use your stencil to paint black lines where the pencil lines used to be. You may need to fill in your lines a few at a time and let them dry before filling in a few more. You don’t want to set your stencil in wet paint.

Alternatively, you could use a thick black marker to draw the lines but paint will look better.

After you have painted all the lines, your masterpiece is complete! Let it dry, hang, and enjoy.

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Piet Mondrian

Piet Mondrian was born in the Netherlands in 1872. He was influenced by many artistic styles and even helped found an artistic movement called De Stijl. He died in 1944, have created about 250 paintings in his lifetime.

The paintings that Piet Mondrian is most famous for are rectangles of white and primary colors, dissected by black lines. He did not always paint this way, however. Mondrian’s first paintings depicted scenes found in real life. They were done in a style similar to impressionism. As his style grew and changed, he stopped using any colors besides the three primaries: red, yellow, and blue. The painting shown below is Avond. This is the first painting in which Mondrian used only primary colors but you can still see the influence of impressionism.

Mondrian soon became interested in cubism. Cubism, which I have not yet posted about, is an artistic style in which the subject is broken into meaningful pieces and rearranged in a new order to show the most important parts of the object. The painting shown below, Still Life with Ginger Pot, was painted by Mondrian in the cubist style. Because of the influence of cubism, Mondrian’s paintings became more and more abstract. Mondrian moved to Paris in 1912 so he could further study cubism.
In 1914 Mondrian returned home just before World War I broke out. He was stuck there for the duration of the war (1914-1919). During this time he became friends with some other artists and together they began the new movement, De Stijl, which I posted about yesterday. The movement was called De Stijl because that was the name of the journal that Mondrian and his friends started. They called the movement neoplasticism and today both names are correct.
The members of the De Stijl movement were searching to paint an even more honest truth than the cubists. They believed the essence, the foundation of all things could be found in the simplest form: straight lines and primary colors. So Mondrian began painting pieces like the one shown above, Composition.

Tomorrow I’ll teach you to make your own Mondrian-inspired painting.

EDITED TO ADD: Create Your Own Edible Mondrian Painting,
Create Your Own Mondrian Masterpiece

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De Stijl

De Stijl (sounds like ‘duh style’) was an artistic movement in the Netherlands from 1917 to around 1928. Artists such as Piet Mondrian, who you’ll learn about tomorrow, wanted to simplify the subjects of their painting as much as possible until they were left with only lines and simple colors. They used only red, yellow, and blue, and black, white, and grey.

De Stijl was confined to the Netherlands because the country did not involve itself in World War I so the Dutch couldn’t leave the country during the war. The art produced in other countries still influenced the de stijl movement, though.

In this 1921 painting, entitled Composition, you can see the simple colors and lines. Notice how few black lines there are in this painting, yet how beautiful the effect.
These ideas were used not only in paintings, but in architecture as well. Look at this house, for instance, designed by Gerrit Rietveld. It is completely black and white with details in primary colors, and uses only rectangles formed by horizontal and vertical lines. The inside also uses simple lines. If you’ve ever seen a Frank Lloyd Wright designed building, you may be thinking that this house reminds you of his work. You’d be right to think that because Wright’s designs from the 1900s and 1910s influenced the later work of these Dutch architects. (You’ll learn about Wright next week.)

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Create Your Own Paper Ornament

This Christmas ornament is easy to make and can be slipped into a Christmas card as a nice pre-Christmas gift for your friends and family.

Supplies Needed:

Green construction paper
Patterned wrapping paper
Tape
Scissors
Ruler
Pencil
Glue stick
Ribbon

Use your ruler and pencil to mark strips of various widths on your wrapping paper. Cut them out. Thinner strips will look better. I cut mine too thin.

Line up the strips in an order different than the sheet of wrapping paper. Try to alternate the colors. Attach the strips to a piece of tape.

Draw a circle on your sheet of green construction paper. Draw a smaller circle inside. Add a rectangle and a loop at the top to make it look like an ornament. Cut out the ornament and remove the inner circle. I cut out the inside of the loop with scissors but a hole punch would be easier.

Trace your ornament onto more green construction paper and cut out a second. Do not remove the inner circle.

Tape the strips of wrapping paper to the construction paper with the hole in it. The strips should show through the hole.

Use your glue stick to attach the back to the ornament.

Tie a piece of ribbon to the loop so the ornament can be hung. Place it on your tree or slide it into a Christmas card and send it to a loved one.

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Create Your Own Candy Cane Rudolph and Santa

You’ve probably seen candy cane Rudolphs but you can create a host of other candy cane characters if you use your imagination.

Rudolph:

Supplies Needed:

Candy Cane
Red Pipe Cleaner
Red Pom
Two Googley Eyes
Ribbon
Glue
Scissors
Wrap the pipe cleaner around the bend in the candy cane. You should complete two wraps and then twist at the top. Bend the pipe cleaner so it looks like antlers. If you have extra length, snip it off.

Tie the ribbon in a bow around the reindeer’s neck. If you tie it tightly enough there will be no need for glue but you can add a dab if you’d like to secure the ribbon.

Glue the eyes to create the face and then glue the pom to the end to make Rudolph’s glowing red nose. I used white glue but a hot glue gun would be more effective. Just be sure to get help from an adult first.

Santa:

Supplies Needed:

Candy Cane
Two Red Pipe Cleaners
White Pom
Two Googley Eyes
Ribbon
Glue
Scissors
White Paint
Small Paintbrush
Wrap a pipe cleaner twice around the bend in the candy cane. Bend it into the outline of a pointed, red Santa hat. Wrap the second pipe cleaner to fill in the hat. Tuck in the ends. Use a bit of glue to attach the white pom to the end of the hat.

Use a small piece of ribbon to make a belt around the center of the candy cane. Use a hot glue gun to secure it. I used double sided tape but it didn’t hold well. Make sure a parent helps you with the glue gun.

Attach the googley eyes with dabs of glue.
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You can create any number of characters from candy canes. Try making elves using green candy canes and pipe cleaners. If you have other ideas, leave comments so others might enjoy them, too.

Happy crafting and have a great weekend!

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