This week we are all about ABSTRACT ART and will be channeling famous Artists who we are inspired by. We will be using some common household items to make art and some techniques, styles and mediums used by these famous artists. In its purest form, Abstract Art has no subject. It is just lines, shapes, and colors (which is what makes it so kid friendly). The Abstract Art movement is called Abstract Expressionism because, although the art has no subject, it is still trying to convey some kind of emotion.
Activity 1: Squeegee (inspired by Artist Gerhard Richter)
Best for (3 years and up) color recognition, creativity, art and craft, fine motor skills
Material Needed: Squeegee, Paper, Syringe or Paint Brush and Paint
This activity is the last one for our Abstract Art series for Art Week. We are sharing a technique today used by the German Artist Gerhard Richter. His hallmark "blur" in his paintings, is achieved sometimes with a light touch of a soft brush, sometimes a hard smear by an aggressive pull with a squeegee.
Ditch the paint brush for this activity and let the kids explore painting with a Squeegee. If you don’t have a Squeegee, you can use a thick piece of cardboard or even an old credit card (squeegee is just easier for the small hands to hold and covers a lot more surface). To start with, take regular paper and add blobs of paint on it. Now invite your kids to use a squeegee and slide it across the paper. You can go from top to bottom, side to side; try making a U, O or S. This is a great exercise for their wrists. If you use Primary colors (red, blue, yellow), see how the colors mix and form Secondary colors (purple, green, orange).
My son loves Rainbow (who doesn’t!). So we added some rainbow colors on the paper and made a melting Rainbow with a squeegee. He calls it ‘Rainbow People’ :)
Next we made a landscape painting. Here we used a syringe to pull the paint and made some lines on the paper. Don’t worry if the lines are wobbly, it’s perfect for a landscape. Now pull the squeegee from the top to the bottom of the page. I love how the colors blend and give you a blur. Use a bottle cap to make the sun and you have a one of a kind Abstract Landscape!
This is a great activity for hands-on color mixing. My son loves a squeegee. He likes cleaning the mirrors and windows with a water spray bottle and a squeegee. If you are not sure how your kid will react to or handle a squeegee, start them off with some water and squeegee to clean. Hope you and your kid enjoy this technique.
Activity 2: Rubber Bands (inspired by Artist Jackson Pollock)
Best for (2 years and up) color recognition, creativity, art and craft, fine motor skills
Material Needed: Rubber bands, Tray, Paper, Tape, Paint and Paint brush
We are sharing yet another easy but fun Abstract Art activity with you today. This one is inspired by the Artist Jackson Pollock. His paintings were all about self expression and he became famous for his Drip and Splatter style of painting. This style of art is also called ‘Action Art’.
The material list is pretty simple for this activity and so is the set up. You will need a tray (we used a baking tray) that is atleast 1” in depth. Now cut the paper (thick paper is always better or use a cardboard) to fit inside the tray. Use a tape on the back of the paper to stick it to the tray, so that it doesn’t move. Take a few rubber bands/elastic bands and wrap them around the tray to create a pattern of lines. The more rubber bands the better. Make sure they are not loose or snap easily.
Now invite your kid to paint the rubber bands with a paint brush. We used three colors, but you can use as many as you want. Paint over and under the rubber band if possible. Now comes the fun part! Tug the rubber band towards you and let go. Watch how the paint splatters onto the paper. Yes it will splatter a little on the kid as well, but they love it nevertheless. It is advisable to use washable kid-safe colors whenever you can.
Now repeat this as many times as you want, with as many colors as you want. What you will get is not only a colorful splatter art very much inspired by the amazing Jackson Pollock, but also a super happy kid who will not want to stop!
Activity 3: Spray Bottle (inspired by Artist Sam Gilliam)
Best for (2 years and up) color and shape recognition, creativity, art and craft, fine motor skills
Material Needed: Spray Bottle filled with water, Watercolor paper (thick paper) and Colorful Tissue Paper.
This Abstract Art activity is perfect for the hot Summer days. It’s not really messy and very easy to set up. Plus it helps in developing their fine motor skills. It was nice to see how much my kids technique (to hold the bottle and spray) improved over the 20 minutes we did this activity.
Sam Gilliam first rose to fame in the late 1960s with his drape paintings (drape means to arrange loosely or casually on or around something). Inspired by this we took some leftover tissue paper (its a good idea to save all the tissue paper from birthdays, gifts and craft activities when you have a kid). The more colors the better! Now let your kid tear them up like you would for a collage. Place the pieces randomly or in a pattern (we did both) on the paper. Watercolor paper works best for this activity as there will be a lot of water spraying.
It’s time to exercise those little hands! Hand them a spray bottle filled with water to spray on the tissue paper. Once the paper is soaking wet, let it out to dry. We left ours overnight. Next morning the paper was all dry and most of the tissue paper just peeled off on its own. Peel off the remaining by hand. You will see the darker colors bleed more than the lighter ones. We also noticed color mixing, like blue and yellow tissue paper overlap gave us green.
We still had some water left in the spray bottle after the activity. You don’t have to tell your kids what to do next. By default our kids next move was to spray anyone around him! So we each got a spray bottle and took the party outside.