This past year my art therapy class studied Wassily Kandinsky. Kandinsky was truly a visionary — he used color on canvas like no other artist had before, which led him to be a leader in the abstract movement. He was influenced by Monet, but was perfectly okay doing his own thing.

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I can’t draw. Yes, it’s true. I can’t draw and I teach art. I have discovered that doesn’t really matter so much…but I can draw circles and so can most of my students. There’s something really satisfying about circles. Circles are complete, they are simple, yet complex…circles are perfect.

I thought having my students learn about Kandinsky would be great for several reasons: One, the colors! I personally am all about the colors and I wanted to share that with my students. Two, the circles! If you learn nothing else about Kandinksy, you learn about his Kandinsky circles.

This project makes for a wonderful group project when finished, but also is a nice individual project where the students can draw their circles and choose their paint colors, therefore being able to “own” a square of a larger group project, which I always like — best of both worlds.

For this activity, you’ll need:
12″ x 12″ canvases
acrylic paint of various colors (the more the better!)
paint brushes or foam craft brushes
pencils
adhesive or glue gun

Have the children draw their rings in pencil on the canvas. We started on the inside and went out. If the children aren’t able to draw their own, you can of course do it ahead of time, so they will just do the painting. Remember these circles are not supposed to be perfect — really they look more authentic if they are kind of messy. When painting the rings, we started in the middle again and then painted every other ring to allow the paint to dry a little so it wouldn’t smear quite as much. Once that was mostly dry we went back and finished the remaining rings. Once the canvases are finished and dry, use the adhesive or glue gun to attach them together at the sides.

There is a beautiful children’s book written on Wassily Kandinsky,  The Noisy Paint Box, by Barb Rosenstock. The illustrations are gorgeous and the story is both entertaining and educational. It’s a great book to read to your child/children if you’re doing a lesson on Kandinsky.

Another Option

In the featured image (top image) I did a different Kandinsky activity with my preschoolers. I have a die cutter with many different sizes of circles. I had the children paint pieces of paper one color and then I used the die cutter to cut out several sizes of circles. I used my paper cutter to cut out squares to arrange on a piece of paper 3 squares by 4 squares. Then had the children place the biggest circle on top of each square, followed by three smaller circles inside those circles.

Paint on!