Painting Kandinsky Circles

Who can resist painting "Kandinsky circles" when you are doing an art unit?

First I showed the students a power point with Kandinsky paintings while listening to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Then I stopped on the circles and we wondered about the painting. 

Questions:

• How do you think Kandinsky paint it? 
• Why do you think he chose circles?
• What do you think was his inspiration? 
• Which materials, mediums did he use? (research) 
• What size is the original painting? (research) 
• What shapes do you see? 
• How many circles? Squares? Can we count them all? 
• Which colors did he use? 
• What do you feel when you look at this painting? 
• What do you think he wanted us to feel?
• If you were to do this kind of painting what would you do the same and different?

One of the students commented, "Wow, he (Kandinsky) really likes circles! I like circles too."

They all wanted to make circles like Kandinsky. 

To facilitate the work for my preschoolers I traced yellow lines to define six areas where the circles would be painted. Sorry this picture is really bad.

 The students wondered how Kandinsky started his painting, with a small circle in the middle, with the square, or with a random circle, or any other way? We tried different ways.  

Most students chose to start with a small circle in the center of the squares.

We used poster paint and cardboard paper as our mediums.

Circles are a great shape to explore through art with young children. According to several developmental scales and 'copy forms' tests the circle is the first shape perceived and mastered by a child.

Below are some of my students' Kandinsky inspired circles.