Keith Haring, the Olympics and Mondrian

What do these three entities have in common? Well, last week 5th graders used the positions that Olympic athletes might assume to create a Haring-like figure. They used pipe cleaners and card stock shapes to form a figure showing MOVEMENT.

They quickly drew a contour line around their figure and drew lines to segment that figure into a minimum of 12 sections and cut out the piece.

This drawing was done on white card stock.

I used Mondrian's Compositon A to illustrate how artists think about color BALANCE as they make paintings. For example, Mondrian did not place all his blue shapes in the same area of his painting; he spaced them out. Students then considered that principle of art as they completed the color portion of their art.

Our goal was to create a collaborative "installation" using figures from all 5th graders in the school. Here is part of that work:

As I walked around I noticed that most kiddos were conscientiously considering balance as they chose locations for their colors and patterns/designs. One adult passing the hallway display said I should title the whole board "HAPPY". Not a bad idea as we welcome the Winter Olympics this week!!