One of our favourite topics this term has been our Shape Tree art project.

Over four weeks weeks we looked at four different artists whose used shape in their work. We created pieces of art that were inspired by them, rather than copied from them.

Week One - Gustav Klimt

We looked at a selecion of the paintings he made using metallic colours and beautiful circles (inspired by his father's jewellery making business). We used felt tips pens to explore different ways to fill circles and then paper to find out how to arrange circles of different sizes including overlapping them.

Week Two - Paul Klee

Paul Klee was fascinated with shape and made lots of paintings of the rooftops of town and cities. He looked at how he could simplify the shapes and use blocks of colour. One of his paintings contains areas of colour that has letters disguised in it. We had a go at using watercolour to disguise and decorate our own names.
 
 

Week Three - Piet Mondrian

Mondrian's work shows how what he saw could be separated into different areas of colour. He used heavy black lines to separate and highlight his shapes. We used his work for practicing our colour mixing skills. Everyone started with one colour and white and had to make each rectangle a slightly different shade. When it was dry we stuck our thin paper stripes over.

Week Four - Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh's work gave the children the opportunity to look at how areas can be built up by using layers of colour moving in different directions. We explored hot and cold colours and then worked in groups to acheive the same texture but using wax crayons.

The work, when displayed together shows contrasting colours, textures and patterns and provides a useful link into 2D shape maths work.

Week Five - Final Piece of Work

During the final week, we worked as a whole class to produce a piece of work that drew its inspiration from all four artists. We started with a simple stylised tree (about 2m tall) taken from Gustav Klimt's work and cut out nine sections. A small group worked on each section using one of the skills they had learnt during previous weeks. The following day, when the paint or glue was dry, the children worked on the detail in the spaces : adding glitter, sequins, leather cord, metallic paint ...