Paul Klee Building Project for Kids

We used simple shapes to create city building pictures like the artist Paul Klee.

Although many of Paul Klee's drawing appear simple, he spent a lot of time studying the mathematics behind his artwork. The simplicity makes the artwork ideal for children to imitate. For example, the geometric shapes in his city scape drawing, provide a perfect opportunity for pre-schoolers and young children to explore shapes while creating art.

Although the project was altered slightly, the basic idea came from the DK book My Art Book.

First, we gathered the squares, rectangles, triangles, parallelograms, and circles from a puzzle kit. Cardboard works just as well.

Next, beginning at the bottom of the paper, the shapes were traced.

After the paper was filled, the shapes were colored with chalk pastels making sure that no two adjacent shapes shared the same color.

Finally additional chalk was added to a few shapes and they colors were smeared together.

12 year old daughter

My drawing

10 year old son

7 year old daughter