Silent Auction Kandinsky

     I was asked at the last minute to come up with a work of art for our annual Silent Auction.  With literally one 40 minute class to complete a project in, I was in serious need of an easy plan.  Luckily, I came up with one.  I decided to have the students make a work inspired by Kandinsky's Squares with Concentric Circles.  Luckily, we had studied Kandinsky earlier in the school year so, the art history portion of my lesson consisted of "you remember.....right?".
     Next I handed out a rectangle of sturdy watercolor paper.  I had each student use oil pastels to draw a small circle in the middle of their paper and continue to draw concentric circles around it.  I let them know that about 4 or 5 circles would be about right.  Some students took liberties in adding other lines or made their circles look like flowers, I think that this adds to the charm of the overall piece.
     Then, I had them choose one  color to paint over their circles (watercolor paint).  Viola....done.
When I got home that night I arranged them and rearranged them until I thought they looked beautiful.  Then I flipped them over and taped them together, trying not to leave any gaps showing.  I attached it to a black matte board,  plopped it in the frame and we were in business.  I really had no idea if this would be appealing to the parents who were attending the auction.  As it turns out, it was one of the most bid on items.... a huge success, and the kids had a great time doing it!  In the picture below hopefully you can see that I took a photo of the artwork, printed off a copy on my computer and had the students sign the rectangle that they had completed.  I also had a printout of the Kandinsky original inspiration and a brief explanation of what we did.
     Just to backtrack a bit, I first started with a frame that I liked then bought one piece of large watercolor paper and cut it to fit the frame.  Then, I cut that into equal rectangles.
This project was done by my kindergarteners and 1st graders (I have very small classes).