Color theory inspired by Paul Klee

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Exercises on warm and cool colours, complementary colours or primary and secodary colours inspired by Paul Klee’s works of art. Here we used watercolors on book’s pages, used as a grid of perpendicular lines.

warm colours
cool colours
complementary colours
complementary colours
primary and secondary colours

This exercise is very easy, even for kids…

copying from Klee with a pencil, following the lines of the page
fill the shapes with watercolors
ready!

We inspired by these Paul Klee’s works of art:

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Printed with leaves and flowers

how to draw a figure

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23 thoughts on “Color theory inspired by Paul Klee”

  1. Fabulous! So stylish and contemporary. LOVE the use of book pages. I absolutely love Paul Klee and visited his museum in Switzerland- I highly recommend it. I also love how this project can appeal to students off differing abilities. Thanks for sharing!

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  2. Dear Miriam,while I searched for ideas for my next art-lessons in a school for special need children, I found your blog and your idea to use klee for warm-cold-complementary colours. But most lovely: the idea of book pages (even though I felt awful when I ripped of the pages of a book). The old paper is wonderful for watercolour, the given structure from the text lines gives it a special style and yeah – easy to say: me and my students loved it! I am so proud of their results, every one a unique one and how they broke the rules to find their own way and got a very personal painting!Thanks a lot for sharing!

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  3. Thank you Ann! Are you a teacher? I'm so happy to meet new teacher around the world, and even happier to share my ideas with them! So… do you have a blog with the works of your student? I'd like to have a look on their works! Nice to meet you Ann!

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  4. I can’t wait to try this with my students! I don’t see a problem with the watercolors making the paper ripple. Was anything done to prevent it?

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    • Hi Darla! I used a very old book with thick pages. You are right: the result depend on the quality of the pages. I’ve found that the old book are better suitable for watercolors, because the pages contain less glue than the new books. You have to try it with different kind of books. Let me know the result if you try it!! 🙂

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  5. Hi,I love this and your inspirational site. Very effective. Which age group did you do this with? I was considering doing it with 7-9 year olds. What do you think?

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