Paul Klee's magic squares

Arts & Activities, Sept, 2003 by Ellen McNally

Children love mixing colors, especially when they're doing so with creamy tempera paint. My students had done paintings based on the bright, intense colors of the Fauves, and they now needed a project that would incorporate a greater range of value and intensity. Who better to study than Paul Klee? His patchwork-square paintings of color come from his realization that, "Color and I are one. I am a painter."

Klee, color mixing and cooperation became the ingredients of an interesting game-like art project I developed for my second-, third- and fourth-grade students. We began by discussing how we often use bright colors in our paintings. These colors come directly from the containers of tempera paints, and are made by mixing analogous colors (similar colors which are next to each other on the color wheel), or by adding white to a color to obtain a tint.

But, what happens when complementary colors are mixed or when we add black? How are colors changed by the colors we put next to them or surround them with?

We looked at reproductions of Klee's paintings in which he divided his canvas into a grid or abstract pattern of geometric shapes, including Fire at Evening, Table of Color (in gray major), Resonance of the Southern Flora and Monument in Fertile Country. We looked for intense and dull colors, patterns created by the placement of colors, and how color created a center of interest.

To learn something about the artist's life and the time in which he lived, we read Paul Klee, by Mike Venezia (Children's Press, 1994). My students were especially interested in Klee's musical ability and how patterns of colors and shapes can make people feel rhythms like those that are heard in music.

We also looked at the book Color, by Ruth Heller (Grosset & Dunlap, 1995), so that we could review the three primary colors--magenta (red), cyan (blue) and yellow--and see how printers use them, along with black, to "magically" create all the colors. [Arts & Activities is printed using this process. Examine any color picture in this issue with a magnifying lens and you will see tiny dots of magenta, cyan, yellow and black working together to create the whole spectrum of colors.-Editor]

We learned how mixing different combinations of the primary and secondary colors--purple, green and orange--can create 18 new colors, and how opposites vibrate when placed alongside one another, but become dull when mixed together. We also observed that some colors are warm and some are cool.

To begin the process, we used a black crayon to divide a 12" x 18" piece of heavy white drawing paper into 16 squares or rectangles. The project then turned into something of an art game. We went around the room and, one by one, each student came up to my desk and asked for two colors, which they received in one stancup, along with a brush. The student returned to his or her table, mixed the two colors, painted one square with the resulting color, and then shared it with the other students at the table.

Soon, all of the students had mixed a color. We had carefully listened to one another choose so that the room was filled with 20 to 25 different colors. When a table was mostly finished with their colors, the students got up and looked for colors from the other tables, so that eventually everyone in the class was able to share their colors.

At the end of the 45 minutes, most students had not painted all their squares, so we put the paintings on the drying rack, cleaned up and waited until the next art class to finish them.

When the next art lesson began, some students expressed the concern that all their squares were filled or almost filled, and wondered what to do when all their squares were filled. Once again, we looked to Paul Klee and remembered how we had read that he was "...always experimenting with his painting materials, and with the surfaces he painted on."

With this in mind, we took a black crayon and drew simple geometric shapes in the centers of some or all of our original squares, which we would then paint in with other colors. In doing so, we were able to see how one color is affected by the color with which it is surrounded. Does purple surrounded by yellow-orange look any different than when a mixture of red and green surrounds it? And why stop there? Lines of color can separate two colors, new colors can create new patterns, colors can unify, and colors can create movement. The students repeated the color-mixing process, this time with last week's experience giving them new insights and ideas as to what colors they wanted to use.

Although the students all began with the same basic structure and a shared palette of color, there was variety and vitality in the finished paintings. The students enjoyed the game-like quality of the project and the freedom they had to creatively interact with one another while working.

On the third day of the lesson, we critiqued the work and completed our "game." I hung all the paintings on the walls of the room so that the students could see the rich, deep, jewel-like colors of their work. Each student stood before the class and asked a color-related question. Some of the students went right to a favorite color they had mixed to ask the class to guess the two colors they had chosen. Others asked questions relating to value, intensity and hue. In this way, we reviewed the concepts learned, answered some of our questions and reinforced our knowledge about the magic qualities of color.