Collection: Piet Mondrian Dab and Dot Art Project

Piet Mondrian was an important and influential abstract painter.  But did you know his early work was mostly realistic paintings, often of trees and flowers?

He developed his abstract style over the years and his artwork became increasingly simplified until there were no recognizable objects in his art, only shapes and colors. His art was influenced by the Cubists. After seeing an art exhibition by Picasso and Braque, he started making his own geometric abstract paintings.

In his later art, he began using only the primary colors (red, yellow and blue), black and white.  He wanted to use only pure colors.  His artwork often had bold black lines forming the simple basic shapes of rectangles and squares.

You can create an artwork using the primary colors and black lines in a similar style.

Materials:

1. Black Tape
2. Scissors
3. White Construction Paper
4. Dab and Dot Dauber Markers

Steps:

1. Place black tape lines on white construction paper. Use the scissors to trim the edges neatly. Create rectangles and squares with the tape. You can use thick and thin pieces of tape. I also used old black vinyl adhesive letters and cut them into thin strips.

2.  Use the primary color Dab and Dot Dauber Markers to add colors to your paper.

Press down on the sponge tip several times to activate the ink and get it flowing.

Continue to fill in the rectangles with colors of your choice.

3. Another option is to experiment with color mixing by layering primary colors to create secondary colors. What happens when you paint blue on top of yellow?

You can make a nice green color!

Red on top of yellow will make orange.  Blue on top of red makes a deep violet color.

When you are finished, compare your artwork to Piet Mondrian's paintings. How are they alike?  How are they different? What did you like most about this project?