Paul Klee

Paul Klee ~ 
An Abstract artist from Switzerland.  
Born into a musical family - but he chose to be an artist.  His artwork shows his love of color and line, love of music and love of children's artwork.
By the age of seven he was playing the violin, and at age eight he was given a box of sidewalk chalk by his grandmother.

Abstract Art:  Art that does not attempt to represent recognizeable reality (or art that looks like a picture) but seeks to achieve its effect using shapes, forms, colors and textures.

Born 1879 - 1940

A Line is a dot that went for a walk.

Art should be like a holiday: something to give a man the opportunity to see things differently and to change his point of view.

A cat lives in a house filled with toys, but every day she dreams of being free like the bird she watches through the window. Finally, with the bird's help, she is able to escape and dance on the roofs of the city by moonlight. This lovely story unfolds in a series of playful, brilliantly colourful illustrations based on the artist Paul Klee's work. Influenced by the artist's bright palette and use of shapes and line, the book culminates in a dazzling reproduction of Klee's Cat and Bird. Accompanied by information about the artist and this iconic painting, the book invites appreciation of the unfettered joyfulness that makes Klee one of the most universally loved artists of all time.

  Klee worked in many different media—oil paint, watercolor, ink, pastel, etching, and others. He often combined them into one work. He used canvas, burlap, muslin, linen, gauze, cardboard, metal foils, fabric, wallpaper, and newsprint.^[62] Klee employed spray paint, knife application, stamping, glazing, and impasto, and mixed media such as oil with watercolor, water color with pen and India ink, and oil with tempera

He often used geometric forms as well as letters, numbers, and arrows, and combined them with figures of animals and people. Some works were completely abstract.

 

Examples from Mr. Swanson's 4th Grade Class 2014-2015