First Quarter, Second, third, and lower-el Montessori Students!

We recently looked at some nonobjective art featuring the art element of line, and discussed the differences in its expressive quality in a painting by Franz Kline and another by Piet Mondrian. As you can see, Mondrian makes very organized compositions and uses very straight lines, while Franz Kline paints quickly, intuitively, and with a feeling of playfulness and spontaneity. We used pairs of words to illustrate the differences between the works. Students explored line through drawings using oil pastel, marker and colorstick.

Our study of color included artists Helen Frankenthaler, Morris Louis and Mark Rothko. We used opposite words to discuss these paintings....words like "moving" and "still", and "light" and "heavy."

We also took a look at some shapes through a beautiful quilt made of diamonds and triangles, and paintings by Victor Vasarely and Hans Hoffman.

Our next project was a mixed-media collage of a City NIght, inspired by Yvonne Jaquette's gorgeous paintings of New York City at night. We are finishing them this week and they are fabulous!