It’s easy and entertaining to use Frank Stella’s art to review geometry. The project below can be fun for elementary students in grades 1-5 with only small adjustments depending on the level of the students.
Supplies Needed:
Posterboard
Construction Paper
Pencil
Scissors
Glue Stick
(Optional) Geometric Stencils
A note to parents/teachers: I recommend creating some stencils out of cardstock if you plan to do this project with children in 1st or 2nd grade. Even older kids may benefit from tracing the shapes rather than drawing their own. Draw circles, triangles, squares, rectangles, hexagons, and octagons onto cardstock, cut out, and make the stencils available to the kids. You can easily adapt this project to your kids and situation by creating fewer shapes (ex: only circles, triangles, and squares) or more shapes (including trapezoids and parallelograms).
Choose which shapes to use in your artwork. You may choose to use as many or as few of each shape as you’d like. Trace the stencils onto colored construction paper and cut out your shapes. Older kids can practice drawing their own shapes onto construction paper and cutting them out.
Arrange your shapes onto your posterboard. When you are pleased with the art you have created, glue the shapes in place.
Cut away any extra posterboard to create a shaped canvas just like Frank Stella.
Another note to parents/teachers: You may wish to have the kids write an explanation of which shapes they used. Ask them to write how many of each shape they used and something about each of those shapes. For instance, if you’ve been learning that circles are enclosed shapes with no sides, have the kids write that. If you’ve been learning how to find area and perimeter, have the kids measure the shapes they used in their art and figure out the area and perimeter of each.
Check back tomorrow for another math-related Frank Stella project.
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Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Frank Stella
Today our look at color field painters continues...
Because Frank Stella is still alive and painting, I’m not going to say much about his life. He was born in 1936 in Massachusetts. He attended Princeton University where he studied history. He was also interested in art and he visited museums and painted. After graduation he moved to New York where he still lives.
Stella’s paintings are meant to be objects themselves. He does not mean to portray any subject you would recognize and he doesn’t try to paint emotion onto canvas. He wants each painting to be a unique paint-on-canvas (or wood, or aluminum, etc.) object.
Many of Stella’s early paintings are extremely orderly. You’ll notice straight or curved lines that repeat in patterns. For example, look at Sunset Beach Sketch and Harran II. Can you guess which painting Stella created using a protractor?
Stella began painting on strangely shaped canvases which were often better suited to his creations. Check out Sunapee I, for example.
Soon, Stella’s paintings began to take on 3D shapes. He started attaching pieces of canvas to wood and building his paintings outward using aluminum and fiberglass. Look at The Pequod Meets the Bachelor which was made from aluminum and magnesium.
Finally Stella started to create sculpture. Click here for one 10 ton example.
Stella’s paintings can easily be used to review some simple math concepts. Tomorrow I’ll post a fun project that can be enjoyed by elementary school children of any age.
Return to main page.
Because Frank Stella is still alive and painting, I’m not going to say much about his life. He was born in 1936 in Massachusetts. He attended Princeton University where he studied history. He was also interested in art and he visited museums and painted. After graduation he moved to New York where he still lives.
Stella’s paintings are meant to be objects themselves. He does not mean to portray any subject you would recognize and he doesn’t try to paint emotion onto canvas. He wants each painting to be a unique paint-on-canvas (or wood, or aluminum, etc.) object.
Many of Stella’s early paintings are extremely orderly. You’ll notice straight or curved lines that repeat in patterns. For example, look at Sunset Beach Sketch and Harran II. Can you guess which painting Stella created using a protractor?
Stella began painting on strangely shaped canvases which were often better suited to his creations. Check out Sunapee I, for example.
Soon, Stella’s paintings began to take on 3D shapes. He started attaching pieces of canvas to wood and building his paintings outward using aluminum and fiberglass. Look at The Pequod Meets the Bachelor which was made from aluminum and magnesium.
Finally Stella started to create sculpture. Click here for one 10 ton example.
Stella’s paintings can easily be used to review some simple math concepts. Tomorrow I’ll post a fun project that can be enjoyed by elementary school children of any age.
Return to main page.
Monday, June 2, 2008
GeeArt
I wrote a post for today but then I found an amazing website that you must see. You'll have to wait until tomorrow to read more about color field painting. I don't want to distract you from playing with this great interactive art site.
The GeeArt website includes funny cartoons in which colorful penguin-like creatures and polar bears talk about art. There are also games and fun quizzes about art. You have to subscribe to use all 16 lessons included on the site, but you can try one out for free. My favorite part about the trial lesson is when Vincent van Gogh and Johannes Vermeer face off in a fastest painter contest. It's pretty funny.
Go check it out for yourself. I'd love to hear what you think.
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The GeeArt website includes funny cartoons in which colorful penguin-like creatures and polar bears talk about art. There are also games and fun quizzes about art. You have to subscribe to use all 16 lessons included on the site, but you can try one out for free. My favorite part about the trial lesson is when Vincent van Gogh and Johannes Vermeer face off in a fastest painter contest. It's pretty funny.
Go check it out for yourself. I'd love to hear what you think.
Return to main page.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Create Your Own Rothko Masterpiece
You learned about Mark Rothko’s color field paintings yesterday. Today, make your own color field masterpiece like Rothko.
Supplies Needed:
White Paper
Tissue Paper in assorted colors
Scissors
White Glue
Paint Brush
Decide on an emotion you’d like to create. Maybe angry, maybe serene. Maybe you want to show love or hate or jealousy. Choose tissue paper in colors that look like the emotion you chose. For instance, if I wanted to create serene I might use turquoise, green, and cobalt blue.
Cut rectangles of tissue paper. You can layer the tissue paper on top of itself to make deep colors, or use just one layer if you wish to see the white paper through the tissue paper. Arrange your colored rectangles on the white paper.
Finally, brush a thin layer of white glue onto your white paper and apply the tissue paper.
Let dry, hang, and enjoy!
I hope you enjoy your weekend. Check back next week for more color field artists.
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Supplies Needed:
White Paper
Tissue Paper in assorted colors
Scissors
White Glue
Paint Brush
Decide on an emotion you’d like to create. Maybe angry, maybe serene. Maybe you want to show love or hate or jealousy. Choose tissue paper in colors that look like the emotion you chose. For instance, if I wanted to create serene I might use turquoise, green, and cobalt blue.
Cut rectangles of tissue paper. You can layer the tissue paper on top of itself to make deep colors, or use just one layer if you wish to see the white paper through the tissue paper. Arrange your colored rectangles on the white paper.
Finally, brush a thin layer of white glue onto your white paper and apply the tissue paper.
Let dry, hang, and enjoy!
I hope you enjoy your weekend. Check back next week for more color field artists.
Return to main page.
Mark Rothko
The first color field painter I’ll post about is Mark Rothko. Rothko did not begin as a color field painter but he his best known for the paintings he did in this style.
Rothko was born in Russia in 1903. He and his family moved to Oregon when he was 10 years old. They struggled for money. Rothko did well in school and earned a scholarship to Yale University. He thought he would become an engineer or an attorney—careers at which he would make some money. In 1923, his second year of college, Rothko left Yale.
He moved to New York City and became involved with some artists. He began taking classes at the New School of Design. Arshile Gorky, whom I wrote about earlier, was one of Rothko’s teachers.
Rothko’s early paintings were somewhat realistic. They showed some recognizable objects such as people, buildings, and landscapes. (For an example click here.)
In the 1940s Rothko became interested in using mythology in his paintings. He thought he could best paint emotion by showing known creatures from myths. These mythological paintings were similar in style to Surrealist paintings. (For example: The Syrian Bull.) It didn’t take long for Rothko to decide that mythology was outdated. He began to believe that too many artists had already used myths in their paintings. He was also convinced that painting myths wasn’t the best way to show emotion in his art.
Mark Rothko’s art became more abstract at the end of the 1940s. He decided that simple shapes were the best for showing complicated feelings. The large, simple shapes allow you to feel instead of think when you look at Rothko’s paintings. (Examples: here, here.)
His later paintings, those from 1948 and later, show only two, three, or four rectangles lined up one of top of the other (vertically). He painted these color field paintings on huge canvases because he wanted the viewer to get lost in the painting. He didn’t want you to stand back from his paintings and look on. He wanted you, instead, to stand close and become a part of the artwork. He wanted you to feel the emotion he had painted. (For images click here, here.)
Beginning in the late 1950s, Rothko used much darker colors. He overlapped colors until the canvas was covered with deep reds, blues, blacks. He was painting sadder, angrier moods than before. (For images click here, here.)
Rothko died in 1970.
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Rothko was born in Russia in 1903. He and his family moved to Oregon when he was 10 years old. They struggled for money. Rothko did well in school and earned a scholarship to Yale University. He thought he would become an engineer or an attorney—careers at which he would make some money. In 1923, his second year of college, Rothko left Yale.
He moved to New York City and became involved with some artists. He began taking classes at the New School of Design. Arshile Gorky, whom I wrote about earlier, was one of Rothko’s teachers.
Rothko’s early paintings were somewhat realistic. They showed some recognizable objects such as people, buildings, and landscapes. (For an example click here.)
In the 1940s Rothko became interested in using mythology in his paintings. He thought he could best paint emotion by showing known creatures from myths. These mythological paintings were similar in style to Surrealist paintings. (For example: The Syrian Bull.) It didn’t take long for Rothko to decide that mythology was outdated. He began to believe that too many artists had already used myths in their paintings. He was also convinced that painting myths wasn’t the best way to show emotion in his art.
Mark Rothko’s art became more abstract at the end of the 1940s. He decided that simple shapes were the best for showing complicated feelings. The large, simple shapes allow you to feel instead of think when you look at Rothko’s paintings. (Examples: here, here.)
His later paintings, those from 1948 and later, show only two, three, or four rectangles lined up one of top of the other (vertically). He painted these color field paintings on huge canvases because he wanted the viewer to get lost in the painting. He didn’t want you to stand back from his paintings and look on. He wanted you, instead, to stand close and become a part of the artwork. He wanted you to feel the emotion he had painted. (For images click here, here.)
Beginning in the late 1950s, Rothko used much darker colors. He overlapped colors until the canvas was covered with deep reds, blues, blacks. He was painting sadder, angrier moods than before. (For images click here, here.)
Rothko died in 1970.
Return to main page.
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