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Amazing Mondrian

Piet Mondrian was a color block artist known for his use of simple geometric elements and primary colors. Students will learn about his life and works and create a Mondrian-inspired piece of art.

Lesson Plan

Supplies Needed

Gather all the supplies needed to bring your craft ideas to life! From paints and markers to glue and scissors, our crafts section has everything to spark creativity and make every project truly special.

  • Paper

Steps

  • Step 1

    Dutch artist Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) was a pioneer in abstract art and one of the founders of the De Stijl modern art movement. He was recognized for the purity of his abstractions and his use of squares, lines, and primary colors and values to communicate ideas. Have students view some images of his work such as "Composition with Blue, Yellow, Red, Black, and Grey" (1922) or "Victory Boogie Woogie" (his last work, left incomplete in 1944). Fun fact: "Piet Mondrian" can be rearranged to spell "I paint modern."

  • Step 2

    Challenge students to create a Mondrian-like drawing using lines, squares, rectangles, primary colors, black, gray, and white.

  • Step 3

    Have students present their artwork and talk about how they used lines, shapes, and colors to portray an image. Discuss how non-representational colors can affect our perception of art images.

Standards

ARTS: Speculate about processes an artist uses to create a work of art. 

ARTS: Explore and invent art-making techniques and approaches. 

MATH: Create models that demonstrate math concepts and attend to precision. 

Adaptations

Have students explore "Homage to the Square," a series of paintings by Josef Albers (1888-1976). He used this series to explore the question of whether an artist can create the appearance of three dimensions using only color relations.

Color field painting is a style of abstract painting characterized by large fields of solid color that emerged in the 1940s and 1950s Have students explore this style and learn about some of its notable artists such as Kenneth Noland, Henri Matisse, and Helen Frankenthaler.