I begin my post on Mondrian with another artist – Mark Rothko. Strange move, I know, but it is Rothko that inspired this flurry of activity that centers around Piet Mondrian.
Rothko was not only a major figure in 20th Century Art, he was an art teacher. And let me tell you, the man was a visionary educator. While it had long been established that you march little child artists through a formal training that started with drawing, Rothko pushed a radically different approach.
Start with color. Start by letting them free in the studio to express themselves without restraint. Don’t start with drafting. And introduce children to abstract painters first, before ladening them with masters like Renoir or Rembrandt.
After teaching art for several years, I believe he is right.
So as I start introducing art to Rémy, I’m doing it the Rothko way. And there is no better place to start than Mondrian.
His devotion to clean lines and primary colors make his artwork extremely readable, accessible, and yet filled with energy and life. Children can understand his work. It makes sense visually.
He is also an interesting thinker who made art at an interesting period, so there are a lot of connections to be made. Before jumping into the deep end with projects and activities, I recommend reading up a tiny bit on the artist. This background research will make your discussions with your child really sing.
To get a sense of who you’re dealing with, check out his page on wikiart, or visit a website devoted to him. If your child is older, you can explore the Tate’s website together.
You can also hop on over to our learning resources for a little cheat sheet I put together. It has a brief overview, vocabulary, and a few activities listed, to serve as a reminder of everything I discuss here.
Once you’ve done a little light reading, it’ll be time to start planning for all the colorful, geometric fun. I’ve put together a list of activities for different ages.
All Ages
Children of all ages (hey, that’s you too!) should get into the habit of consuming quality visual images. I’m talking the kind of images that you see hanging in a museum.
The more profoundly great images they consume, the better they will be at thinking critically and creatively. The more they discuss what they see, the better they will be at explaining their thinking.
So pull out the book on Mondrian sitting on the shelf, or print out some of his pictures. Some of my favorites:
Here are a few questions to help guide conversations with children that are old enough to engage in discussions. The questions get progressively more challenging, and some will require a bit of research to help the discussion along:
· What do you see?
· How does Mondrian’s paintings make you feel?
· What have you seen before that reminds you of Mondrian’s paintings?
· How do Mondrian’s paintings show his love of jazz music?
· What is the relationship between art and fashion? Between art and architecture? Between art and pop culture?
· How do Mondrian’s paintings reflect the time that he was living in?
Always start by having your child describe what they see. Then let what they see lead to deeper discussions about what they think.
Young Toddlers
Interactive Stained Glass Window
Guiding Question: How do we make marks like an artist?
No mess finger painting is one of those activities that you see everyone doing. We started doing it with Rémy, at around five months. He loved it.
So this window just takes it to another level. For the full scoop on how I created the window, and all the learning activities that we used it for, check out our video:
Pre-Sorting and Sorting
Guiding Question: How do we classify things by color?
We’ve all seen the baskets filled with different objects that share a single unifying characteristic – their color. Rémy has enjoyed these baskets for a while now. Exploring these baskets is one of the many steps along the way to sorting and classifying objects. It’s pre-sorting.
But what if there were no baskets? Instead, I’ve taken the objects and presented them differently, in a way that nudges him toward future sorting activities.
I used black painters tape to tape off a Mondrian composition on his little table, and used red, yellow, and blue cardstock for the blocks of color. Then I populated each of the colored sections with items with corresponding colors.
Once Rémy is ready to sort, I will be able to give him a basket filled with objects of different colors, and he will be able to place each object on the appropriate color. When he’s done, he will have created an art installation of sorts.
Color and Size Matching
Guiding Question: How can we match by size and color?
Print out a full-page image of a Mondrian painting. I recommend laminating the image at this point so it’ll last longer, but it’s not totally necessary. Cut out pieces of colored paper to match the color blocks in the painting. Present the painting and color pieces on a tray. You have yourself a little matching puzzle.
Older Toddlers
All of the above activities will continue to work for older toddlers, as well as:
Felt Mondrian Creator
Guiding Question: How do we create a Mondrian painting with (rhythm/balance)?
This activity allows a child to play around with composition. It is great for starting to explore ideas like balance and rhythm. It’s also great for kids who are a bit hesitant because they don’t like making mistakes.
To make a polished, stable finished product, I recommend creating a felt board with white felt as the background color. Buggy and Buddy, have put together a great tutorial on how to create a felt board.
Do you have to make the board? No. If pressed for time (and aren’t we all?), then the less polished version is just plopping down a square of white felt.
Once you have the board (or not ;), cut out black felt strips of differing length. These will serve as the horizontal and vertical lines. Also cut out different size color blocks in red, yellow, blue, and maybe even black.
Present the felt board with all of the smaller pieces, and allow your child to compose a Mondrian or two or twenty.
Magnetic Mondrian Creator
Guiding Question: How do we create a Mondrian painting with (rhythm/balance)?
This is basically the same activity as above, but done on a white board or refrigerator.
Create magnet stickers by using magnetic sheets. Adhere the sheet to black strips and blocks of color, and cut everything out.
If you have a white or light colored fridge, this will work really well. But it would also be a perfect shelf activity if the magnets are scaled to fit a small whiteboard.
Mondrian City
Guiding Question: What buildings can we find in our city?
Create a color block city perfect for cars and little people to populate.
Paint boxes of different sizes red, yellow, and blue. These will serve as colorful buildings. Mark out the dimensions of your city, and then start placing the boxes within the city limits.
Then use the black painters tape to create the outlines around the buildings, and the streets that the cars will drive on.
This activity is a great way to have children start thinking about balance. It also gives them an opportunity to think about the types of buildings they see that might be good in their city.
Jazz
Guiding Question: How was Mondrian inspired by jazz music?
Toward the end of his life, Mondrian was deeply inspired by jazz music and loved to dance (although rumor has it, he wasn’t a particularly great dancer). He became friendly with musicians like Thelonious Monk.
Take a few minutes to play some jazz music, maybe even a few tracks by Monk while you are looking at Mondrian's work. Explain the connection.
It’s not necessarily important that kids be able to explain the connection at a young age. They are still coming to understand how seemingly unrelated things connect. But it’s great to start pointing these things out, and letting them see if they can find their own way to recognize the connection.
Counting
Guiding Question: How many quadrilaterals are in a Mondrian painting?
How many squares? How many rectangles? Don’t forget to count the squares that are made up of other squares!
Homeschool and Enrichment
Here are some activities for the older kids – from kindergarteners to those in high school. Some of these projects are best for children of middle school or high school age, but many of them are actually within reach with enough time and support.
Painting
Guiding Question: What artistic rules do we follow to create a Mondrian painting?
After doing a deep dive into the essential elements of Mondrian – the horizontal and vertical lines, and the sparing use of primary color, it’s time to create their very own Mondrian inspired piece of art. Before starting, ask your child to create a list of rules to guide them along based on what they have seen.
Using tape to mark off lines will give the final product a nice clean look. I also recommend talking to your budding artist about painting just as Mondrian did – with short strokes in the same direction.
I’ve seen some versions of this project where the lines go every which direction. That’s cool, but it’s not Mondrian. This is a man who left the De Stijl movement because someone suggested that diagonal lines were vital. It was the hill Mondrian was willing to die on, so I think it’s best to honor that by sticking to horizontal and vertical lines.
Music Canvas
Guiding Question: How can we create visual art that reflects a piece of music?
To add another layer to the above project, introduce jazz into the mix. Have your child listen to different songs and compose several Mondrian paintings to reflect the specific music they heard.
Make sure you talk through how the choices they made reflect the music they were listening to.
Art and Jazz
Guiding Question: What can we learn about the influence of jazz on 20th century art?
While you are at it, go ahead and do a mini research project about the influence of jazz on 20th century art. There’s a lot to unpack there, and will lead your child down a wonderful rabbit hole of modern art.
Art History
Guiding Question: What historical elements influenced Mondrian?
Pick one of Mondrian’s paintings and then research what was going on during that decade. What was the political atmosphere? What were the major works of literature? What was the music like? What scientific discoveries were being made?
Zoom out and see how all these things may have had an influence on a particular painting. A great culminating experience would be to have your child pick one element that they feel must have had an impact on Mondrian’s thinking.
Sculptural Mondrian
Guiding Question: How can we create a three dimensional Mondrian?
Mondrian is wonderfully flat, so try going the opposite. Ask your child to imagine what a Mondrian could look like as a three dimensional piece of art.
You could either use this project as problem solving practice by limiting your child to a box full of set materials, or you could let the child plan out their sculpture piece without restraints and then help them create their vision.
STEAM Powerhouse Unit
Guiding Question: What is Mondrian’s favorite color?
This unit proves that art can be an entry point for all types of lessons in math, science, and technology. The lesson and scaffolding provided to a child can and should change depending on their math, research, and critical thinking skills. I try to note how each section of the unit could be altered.
Every single section of the unit will move a child closer to definitively answering the guiding question.
Building background knowledge:
This is truly the first step of any good scientific or design process. Before jumping into research, spend one lesson reviewing what constitutes good research and reputable resources.
If your child has not engaged in independent research before, then guide them through the process of brainstorming ideas to search for, and then help them along as they engage in the process.
Have your child do research on anything that might give them insight into color and how people are affected by color. This may lead to time devoted to understanding a tiny bit of optical physics, and a healthy dose of color psychology.
They should also spend a bit of time researching Mondrian himself, and looking at several of his paintings.
Hypothesis:
Armed with enough information to make an educated guess, it’s now time for your child to create their hypothesis. What color do they believe to be Mondrian’s favorite? Have the child write up the hypothesis, along with a brief note on why.
Designing the Test:
This may require quite a bit of support, or very little, depending on the child, but the important thing is to have them engaged in the process of developing the means in which to test their hypothesis, rather than just handing them the process.
Ultimately, there are a couple ways in which you could test this out – if possible try to guide the child to one testing method through questions.
First you should discuss sample size. What number of paintings should be included in the study to provide an accurate result? All of his paintings? Half? 20? 10? You will need to print out however many paintings as you decide are appropriate for your study.
Then, the idea you need to get to is measuring. If they want to simply measure the length or width of each color block, ask them if that is an accurate means to understand how much color is on the canvas. Ultimately, they need to come to calculating area.
Once there, the natural progression would be to think of adding all the calculated areas found for a given color. You will need to poke holes in this approach. You are not measuring the actual painting, but a digital reproduction, so the dimensions will be off. One museum may have a large painting that they created a tiny image for, and visa versa. So you will need to account for this. But how? See if your middle or high school child can problem solve their way to a solution.
The first way I can think of is to measure the areas of each color within a painting, and then measure the painting itself. Then create a percentage of the painting that each color occupies. After you have done this with enough different paintings, add up the percentages.
The second way would be to find the dimensions of the original painting and then calculate what the measurement would be on the original by using ratios.
For a child who is not ready for percentages or ratios, then have them add the areas without adjusting for size differences. Is it totally accurate? No. But it’s still a very engaging and challenging unit.
Test:
Follow the steps you and your child created.
Reflect:
Have your child write up their final thoughts on what they discovered, whether their hypothesis was correct, and suggestions for additional tests or research. If possible, have students create graphs, charts, or other data visualizations to aid their scientific communication.
Let’s see what we can make!
Mondrian is so inspiring, I feel like I could go on and on with these activities, but this is a good start. I’m including my Pinterest board for a couple more dashes of inspiration.
I hope you give one or two activities a try, and if you do, please let me know how it goes! Leave a comment, or even better – send me a picture of the fun.
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