Ellsworth Kelly

Ellsworth Kelly is the final color field painter I plan to post about at this time. He is still living so I’ll just give you a quick summary of his life.

Kelly was born in 1923 in New York. As a child he moved a lot. Moving makes it difficult to develop friendships so Kelly was sometimes lonely. To keep him busy his grandmother taught him to bird watch. Kelly was very interested in the birds and he began to study them. John James Audubon’s work, which you may remember reading about, helped Kelly in his study of birds. Watching birds made Kelly sensitive to color and influenced his art later in life.

Another experience that influenced Kelly’s art was his army service. During World War II he spent a lot of time around camouflage. This helped him learn to use shadow in his paintings

When he got out of the army, Kelly moved to Boston where he studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. Two years later he continued his art education in Paris.

In 1954 Kelly returned to New York. His art was not accepted right away. It was very different from the other works of art created during the time. Even so, people saw that there was something special about what he was creating. He was among the only artists who used more than one canvas in a single painting. He also used shaped canvas. Kelly even created entire paintings using only one color.

What I really love, and what I wanted to show you today, are Kelly’s colorful, random grid paintings. Some Kelly created by lining up small, square canvases, each painted a different color. Check out this one. For others, like this one, he drew and then colored in the squares.

Tomorrow, I’ll show you how to make your own grid art.

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Create Your Own Portfolio

Artists often keep portfolios of all their best work. You can do this, too. You’ve probably made a lot drawing and paintings. If you’re like me, they’re scattered all over the place. This portfolio (which is like a folder for your art) will help you to organize your art and keep it safe.

Supplies Needed:

Posterboard
Fabric
Glue
Hole Punch
Yarn or Ribbon

Cut your posterboard into two pieces. Each piece should be about 14 inches wide and 11 inches long. Cut a 4 inch by 14 inch strip of fabric. Choose any colors you wish.

Spread some glue onto the bottom edge (the 14 inch side) of the posterboard. Glue one edge of the fabric to the posterboard. Next, spread glue over the bottom edge of the second piece of posterboard and attach the other edge of the fabric.

Punch a hole through the center of the top edge. Tie a piece of yarn or ribbon through each hole. If you’d like, decorate the outside of your portfolio.
Slip your artwork into your portfolio and tie the strings together.

Later in the week I’ll post a project that you can add to your portfolio.

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Dr. Seuss

I need a break from color field painters. Dr. Seuss is just the thing, don’t you think?

I’m sure you’ve heard of Dr. Seuss, author and illustrator of more than 40 picture books including The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, and The Lorax (my favorite). You’ve probably read at least a few of his books. But did you know that he created works of art that were never meant to be used in his books?

At night, when he wasn’t working on his books, Dr. Seuss loved to paint and sculpt. He created this art only for himself. He didn’t mean for others to see it, though he probably knew that eventually people would. I love Dr. Seuss’ illustrations and I was thrilled to find that there were more pictures to look at.

The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss is a collection of Dr. Seuss’ artwork. Some of you may be interested to read the introduction which was written by Maurice Sendak, author and illustrator of Where the Wild Things Are. The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss is full of the wacky characters you’d expect from Dr. Seuss. There are lots of cats, of course, and many creatures not found in nature. I think my favorite piece in the book is the Impractical Marshmallow-Toasting Device. You’ll have to check out the book for yourself to see what that device looks like!

I hope you enjoy this discovery as much as I did. Have a great weekend!

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Use a Compass to Create Your Own Stella Masterpiece

Sorry for the posting delay. We had tornados yesterday and a lot of the area lost power. I did my best to stay out of the apartment as long as possible. Not to worry: everything’s fine now.

A note to parents/teachers: For your enjoyment, I am posting a second math-related project inspired by Frank Stella’s work. This one is perfect for practicing using a compass. Compasses can be tough to use at first and when students need to create circles of specified size it can be even tougher. This is a fun and artistic way to practice.

Begin by teaching the students a new term: concentric. Concentric circles are two or more circles within each other that have the same center point. Concentric arcs are two or more arcs lined up next to each other that share a center point.

Supplies Needed:

Paper
Pencil
Compass
Colored Pencils or Crayons
Black Marker (optional)

Place your compass point somewhere on your paper and create a large circle. Your parent or teacher may ask that the circle be a certain size. Make sure it will fit on the page before you begin. If you’re doing this project on your own, choose for yourself what size you want your largest circle to be.

Now, set your compass to a smaller size. Place the point in exactly the same place on the page. Remember that concentric circles must share a center point.

Continue to create smaller and smaller circles inside the large circle.

When you’ve created as many circles as will fit inside your large circle, move your compass to another point on the paper and decorate the blank spaces with concentric arcs or smaller concentric circles.

Finally, color the spaces between the circles with colored pencil or crayon. If you wish, trace the pencil lines with black marker to make them stand out.

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Use Geometry to Create Your Own Stella Masterpiece

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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