Contemporary Art with Circles

by Deborah Harju, posted on July 23rd, 2013 in Art School

Shapes in art are not foreign to all you Classic Play Art students now are they? No, we’ve discussed shapes and geometry (remember that vocabulary word) in our Islamic Art Lesson and when we learned about Mondrian’s abstract works of art.

The word contemporary can be interchanged with the word modern, it basically just means ‘made in our present time period’. It also can be used when artists experiment with new ideas and use new materials. Did you know artists like Vincent van Gogh and Paul Cezanne are often referred to as modern artists? Yes! They decided to change the art world and create “wild”, multi-colored masterpieces.

Today we are going to create some contemporary or modern art pieces using some simple shapes that you have around your house. Collect together some white painting paper, some bowls for paint, several paint colors, and paper and plastic cups of different sizes.

Pour paint into your bowls so that the bottom of each bowl is nicely coated. You made need to add a little water and mix it around like I did if your painting with acrylics.

Now choose a cup to start with, each end will probably be a different size circle, so each cup could serve double duty. Dip your cup into the paint and place it on your paper.

You can layer circles within each other, change colors. The idea is for this to be abstract, and not really resemble a place or a thing. So don’t worry about placement or getting something just right. We washed our cups and then reused them in different colors. It’s really neat to see how the painting changes depending on where your shapes are placed.

We are working with circles today, but you could easily change out the shape for squares or stars, etc. No two pieces will look the same. Some cups, especially if you used small ones may create bubbles on your piece, or parts of a cup’s rim might grab more color than others. It’s all these differences that make them so unique and beautiful.

Don’t stop with just one painting, keep going and see how they all compare to each other when you are finished.