Kandinsky-Inspired Circle Art for Kids

Hey, friends!  As many of you already know, I’m wearing one extra hat through the end of the school year…art teacher!  I’m subbing for the teacher at Little Crafter’s school who is out on maternity leave, and I’ve been having an absolute blast coming up with fun projects for the kids and teaching them about some amazing artists.  This week, we talked about one of the fathers of Abstract Art, Wassily Kandinsky, who was one of the first artists to realize that all you needed were shapes + color to make art!  Here’s the Kandinsky-Inspired Circle Art we made:

TIME REQUIRED: 10-20 minutes
DIFFICULTY LEVEL: very easy; I did this with 5-9 year olds and all were able to do it with no assistance
SPECIAL TOOLS/SKILLS: none

This project is modeled after one of Kandinsky’s most famous paintings, Squares With Concentric Circles.  Students get to play with colors and shapes to create their own version in a hands-on and not-too-messy way.

Materials:

– white card stock cut into 6×6″ squares
– colored paper cut into 2×2″ squares
– Elmer’s School Glue and glue sticks
– assorted round buttons {ours were provided by Laura Kelly}

Step 1: Use a glue stick to attach colored squares to the white cardstock in three rows of three.

Step 2: Glue a large button in each square, then stack smaller buttons on top!

Some students chose to form patterns with their square colors, like this one who used only orange, purple, and red backgrounds.

All of the students were really engaged by the project and seemed to enjoy it a lot.  They loved playing around with the different buttons and colors to create just what they wanted.

To make the project more complex for older kids, you can have them divide their cardstock into squares with a pencil and ruler and use watercolors to create the colored backgrounds for the buttons instead of gluing on the paper squares.  Either way, it’s a simple, fun way to introduce abstract art to little artists!

I loved seeing the variety of all their finished projects…and how high some of the students made their button stacks!

Stay tuned for another Kandinsky-inspired project later next week!  In the meantime, if you make this one with a little crafter in your life, I’d love to see pictures!