Abstract Art!

We decided to start off the New Year with some ABSTRACT ART making. 

We started our exploration of abstract art with these patterned cardboard collages. These are made by gluing corrugated cardboard strips and scraps to a square of cardboard, then painting the sections in various colors and patterns. 

Cardboard pieces are glued down with ordinary white glue (no need for hot glue), and painting can begin prior to the glue drying completely. 

You can use liquid tempera or acrylic paint; either type should sufficiently cover the corrugated cardboard. If a color seems too transparent, you can paint the substrate white first, then proceed with your choice of color.

The result is a colorful, unique, 3-dimensional work of art!

Next, we got a little (okay, a lot) more experimental with some playful layered abstract art. Working in layers on a square piece of white poster board, we used a variety of painting techniques, including brayer rolling, stamping, sponging, splattering, or whatever else we could think of, along with a little collage work. 

We decided on a theme along the way and incorporated it into the
piece along with a few descriptive words and/or illustrative images. 

Tip: Our artists found it's best to select a few analogous colors first, then add one complementary color to spice it up. It's more pleasing to the eye than attempting to use an entire rainbow of color!

We also made some circle & line abstract art in the style of Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky. 

For these, we used masking tape, lids (to trace), cake temperas, and Sharpies on 12 x 18 drawing paper.

We decided that abstract art is not only fun to look at, but also fun to make!

Abstract Triangle Art

We decided to start the new year with some abstract art exploration. Our first explorations were these painted watercolor triangle collages. 

Pretty spectacular, aren't they? 

Lots of fun to make as well. Little did we know (for all those "I'll never use math" naysayers) that we would use plenty of math - specifically geometry and algebra - to complete these, without even knowing it. 

For example, how do right triangles, equilateral triangles, acute and obtuse triangles fit together evenly, while leaving equal spacing between each piece? Tricky - and fun! 

Also, knowing how large to make the substrate for the amount of painted/cut paper to be glued on it was another problem to figure out. 

Of course, running out of space would mean not using all of the collage pieces. Not enough pieces would mean cutting down the substrate to fit. In art, either solution is okay!   

We also made rules - such as cutting out triangles only for this piece. And none of them should touch - we tried to leave even spacing between each shape. 

Smaller cut, puzzle-like elements. Artist age 8

Abstract paintings were created with liquid watercolor (mostly using wet-on-wet techniques) on student-grade 90 lb. watercolor paper. Collages were then glued to black or white square poster board.

Learn more about this abstract art project on our earlier post.