(gentle music) - Hello, early learners and welcome back to the art room.

This week, we are going to spend the entire week celebrating something that happened on September 15th.

It's called International Dot Day.

A whole day celebrating the dot?

And a dot is just a circle that is colored in.

Well, a man named Peter Reynolds wrote a book called "The Dot" and I'm going to be reading it tomorrow.

But, today I wanted to tell you, the reason that people are celebrating the Dot Day is because Peter Reynold's book told children, "Just make a mark in the world.

Put your mark on a piece of paper and if that's all you can do sign it and there you go."

But, we're going to be doing all kinds of art with dots.

So, I want to tell you about our artist for the day.

His name is Wassily Kandinsky and he was born in Russia.

He was gifted.

We have five senses that we talk about and when we sing ♪ Head, shoulders, knees, and toes, ♪ We say eyes and ears and mouth and nose - That are four of our senses.

He didn't just look at art.

When he made the art, colors made sounds for him.

For instance, he thought yellow looked like a bright color of a horn and that horn is golden.

So, as he would paint with yellow, he would see the sound of horns.

Interesting, isn't that?

He also would choose color to show his feelings and he didn't always use the colors of the real objects.

He was one of the first people who said, "I don't want to just start painting flowers and scenes and people.

I want to do abstract."

And those are things that don't look like something, a picture of something and we're going to talk about one today.

Let me hang him up because he said, "Everything starts with a dot" and that's why I chose him as our artist.

He thinks everything starts with a dot.

Now, we looked at this print before when it was Earth Day and we used it as our planets.

When we did the outside of our earth, we put other planets in the picture and we used all kinds of dots.

So, let's take a look at the print called "Several Circles."

Let me turn my body sideways.

Let's look at this print by Kandinsky.

It's called "Several Circles."

Now, something interesting about this is this is the biggest circle.

But, it doesn't have a concentric circle in the middle.

Concentric means like this one.

This circle has a dot right in the middle of that circle.

So, does this one.

This one has a dot with a circle there.

But, this one is eccentric.

It's off center.

This one has an eccentric.

It's off-center.

This big black dot in the middle of the blue one is off-center.

So, it's called eccentric.

Now, the interesting thing that Kandinsky could do, since he only used circles in this artwork, we can focus on color and size and where they're positioned and balanced in the picture.

So, we're going to do something like this in our art project today.

So, you'll need a piece of paper, some circles that you can trace.

I'm going to be using watercolors.

But, you can use any of your coloring tools that you have.

So, we're going to be making a "Several Circles" picture using just circles and coloring them in to look like dots.

Let's take a look at the book that we're going to read today because I told you about Kandinsky and how he could hear colors.

So, let me move my table up on my lap and we'll put this here so I can get "The Noisy Paint Box."

Now, the noisy paint box is a story.

It says, "The colors and sounds of Kandinsky's abstract art."

And, remember, abstract means that you don't have something like people in there or a landscape or other things that you would recognize.

But, here is Kandinsky as a little boy and he's opening up his paint box and noticing that colors are coming out as sounds.

Let's open and see what this book is about.

"The Noisy Paint Box."

"The Noisy Paint Box."

"Vasya Kandinsky spent his days learning to be a proper Russian boy.

He studied book fulls of math, science, and history."

But, look at his face.

That is not a happy face.

"He practiced piano scales to the marching click of the metronome."

Now, a metronome goes tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.

So he's going: ♪ Da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da ♪ ♪ Da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da ♪ So, he's doing his scales on the piano to the sound of the metronome.

"He sat stiff and straight in his dressed up dinners while the grown-ups talked and talked and talked.

Vasya's well-off world was perfectly polite until the day his aunt gave him a small wooden paint box!"

Here's his auntie, and she said, "'Every proper English boy should appreciate art,' said auntie and she showed Wassily the correct way to mix colors on the paint box palette."

And we're going to paint paint today and we can mix hours on our palette too.

"Now, Vasa mixed red with yellow, and then he mixed red with blue, and as the colors changed Vasya heard a whisper: Hiss!

Then a louder: Hiss!

And then louder still: Hiss!"

And look how the colors are coming out in the word hiss.

He is hearing his colors.

"'Ooh, what's that sound?'

asked Vasya.

"I didn't hear a thing," said Auntie.

Well, Vasya listened as his brush stirred and swirled and the swirling colors trilled like an orchestra tuning up for a magical symphony.

'Mama!

Papa!'

called Vasya.

'What a noisy paintbox!'

'Oh, silly Vasily!"

said Papa.

'Stop being foolish!'

said Mama."

We know that they don't believe the paintbox could be making sounds.

"So, Vasya painted the sound of the colors.

He spun a bright lemon circle onto the canvas.

It clinked like the highest notes on the keyboard.

He brushed a powerful Navy rectangle that vibrated deeply like lowest cello strings.

He tossed up jagged swashes of blaring crimson and added cheerful dots of burbling green and changed orange and tinkling violet.

Vasya painted and painted until the colors went quiet.

'Look what I made!'

shouted Vasya.

'Is it a house?'

asked Auntie.

'Is it a flower?'

asked Mama.

'What's it supposed to be?'

asked Papa.

'It's music!'

said Vaya, waltzing his painting around the house.

'Calm down!'

said Mama.

'Do some math!'

said Papa.

'Heavens!

said Auntie.

'This boy needs a proper art class.'

So, Vasya went to art class and he learned how to draw houses and flowers just like everybody else.

And, as the years passed, Vasya finished school and studied to be a lawyer.

He ignored his noisy paint box and lived the way people expected him to.

But, Vasya couldn't ignore the sounds of the colors singing to him in the streets of Moscow.

The canary-colored mailbox whistled as he rode to work.

(teacher whistles) The Scarlet sunset haze ringing above the ancient Kremlin walls and ivory chorus of snowflakes scattered on the sable collar of his overcoat.

One evening, suitably steamed and starched, Vasya attended the opera and, as the orchestra's music crashed around him, the colors of the noisy paintbox twirled wildly in his mind.

Stumping lines of vermilion and coral.

Caroling triangles in pistachio and garnet.

Thundering arches of aqua and ebony with shrill paints of cobalt and saffron.

Vasya heard the colors singing.

Vasya saw the music dancing and as Vasya was never quite proper, again.

He quit his job teaching law and he moved from Moscow to Munich to be a painter.

He studied with a famous teacher.

Then that one.

'Is it a house?

Is it a flower?

What's it supposed to be?'

his teachers asked.

Vasya wanted to paint the colors he heard.

But, maybe the famous teachers knew better.

Once again, Vasya put houses and flowers and animals and people in his paintings just like everyone expected and the teachers were happy.

But, Vasya wasn't.

His artist friends understood.

They too were tired of painting pretty landscapes and pretty ladies.

They thought art needed to change.

'Art should make you feel,' Vasya told them.

"Like music."

'Exactly!'

said his friends.

But, none of them knew how to paint feelings until the day Vasya grew brave enough and he invited the world to see the paintings roaring from his noisy paint box.

Rattle, bash, whistle, murmur, zip, clang, fizz, hiss, tweet!

Snapping orchestra, cerulean points, crunching crimson squares, whispering charcoal lines, Vasya named these paintings after the music he loved: 'Improvisation,' 'Composition,' 'Accompaniment,' 'Movement,' and simply 'Three Sounds.'

And, with his noisy paintbox, Vasya Kandinsky created something entirely new: abstract art."

And our last page says: "It took a long time for people to understand.

'Is it a house?

Is it a flower?

What's it supposed to be?'

'It's my art,' Vasya answered.

'How does it make you feel?'"

And here's the painting that we studied last month.

It's yellow, red and blue.

That is the story of ""The Noisy Paint Box."

All right, boys and girls let's get our paper, our shapes, and our pen to start our project.

Here's my white paper and it's kind of big.

You can make it any size you like because this is an abstract that we're going to start out by drawing the circles and then we will paint them.

Let me get my water and my watercolors.

I have several brushes so I don't have to clean them each time, move them over, and all of the paints.

I put a little water in each of the paints this morning when I first got to the studio so they would be ready for you.

Let me show you how I do that.

I have this little squeeze bottle and I put a drop of water in each of the pans so that they're ready and soft for me to use.

Now, Kandinsky did abstract, which means we're not going to be doing a picture of any flowers or people or landscapes.

But, look, at all my shapes of circles.

I just brought lids to things and some plates and that's what we're going to do.

I'm going to start out maybe with the biggest circle and I'll put it on my paper.

It doesn't have to be in the center.

It can be anywhere you want.

I'm starting out with my largest one.

But, you can start out with whatever one you want and I'll move it aside.

Now, some of them may overlap and then some might just be eccentric, which means not exactly in the middle, like a concentric circle might be.

And I'll put this one and maybe just overlap it.

All of these are different sizes because I'm doing all the same shape, but doing things like Kandinsky did with a variety of sizes and then I can do a variety of colors, as well.

I'm trying to balance some out, even though in his picture that we looked at, it was called "Several Circles," he did not.

Oh, I'm going to put this one as concentric.

He didn't balance his out.

He had some all bunched up in one side and he had some others off to the other side.

Oh, here's a little tiny one.

I think I'll put some over here.

Balance it out a little bit.

Maybe there, maybe one up here.

Oh, I made a bump on it.

That's okay.

When I pain it in, I don't think we'll notice.

I'll put one more, I think.

No, I think this is good.

Remember, when you use the pens, make sure your lids snap when you put them aside.

All right, so, let's move our paints over so we can begin to do a color study.

Now, tomorrow the print that we're going to study of Kandinsky's is called "Squares with Concentric Circles" and really he didn't intend that to be a big deal of a painting.

It was just him doing a color study.

So, he wanted to see what colors would look good together and he began to color concentric circles.

So, what I'm going to do is figure out what colors I think look beautiful next to each other and I'm going to start with my orange and I'm going to paint in just one section and I get near the black line.

I try to stay in the space as much as I can.

If I go out, it doesn't really matter because I can mix it with the color next door.

I like that orange there and while I have orange on my paint brush, I think I'll do this one out here.

Now, we know that when Kandinsky's aunt gave him his paint box, she said to use the lid as a palette and mix colors.

So, I think I will get into my yellow and put it in the lid and mix it with some green that I already have there from another project.

I just don't ever clean the lid.

And I'm going to paint the inside of this concentric circle.

Remember, concentric is when it's inside, perfectly in the middle, of another circle.

I'm going to put this one over here and have a repeating color because, in a color study, it's kind of nice to have some repeating colors.

Now, I have some paper towels here because each time I wash my brush, I like to dry it off a little bit.

Otherwise, it's way, way too wet.

Now, I'm going to get in here and get some of this really bright blue.

But, I'm also going to get some of the green because you know how I like to mix my colors and not use them straight from the palette and I'm going to go near the edge and I use the point of my paintbrush to get near the black without going out outside of the line.

Notice: I'd put it near the edge and just go slowly.

I go back in for a little more color when it dries out and I'm still going near the edge by putting the paintbrush next to the edge and just going slowly around the shape.

I like to paint mine with an outline first.

It just seems easier for me to fill in the space later when I've gotten near the edge without making it go outside of the lines and I'm doing small strokes, kind of like our artist van Gogh would do short strokes in his artwork and, something about watercolors, it shows a little bit of the mixing that goes on because the water is kind of transparent and makes the paints be see-through because on the other paints that we're going to use this week, they aren't as see-through as watercolors.

The water makes them thinner, but the tempra paint makes them remain thick and if you put soap in them, dry soap, like the old days, they used to use powdered clothing soap, laundry soap, and it makes the paint even thicker and you can put it on with a knife or a Popsicle stick or something like that.

Are you able to use paints today?

Are you using crayons and coloring in your circles?

I'm going to finish up this eccentric circle by painting this one kind of a pinky, magenta color.

Some of these colors look redder than magenta.

But, I'm putting this one in with a little bit of purple to make it kind of magenta looking 'cause red with a little purple makes a magenta color.

I'm going to put that right next to the orange, two warm colors.

I started with that blue, which you know is a cool color.

Anything that's the color of water is known as a cool color and the colors like the sun are warm colors, which makes sense, doesn't it?

I think this kind of green color could use a dark green next to it.

The one that's kind of like a moss green.

I'm going to use this green next to it.

I'm going to put it in the lid so it's a little watery.

I mixed a little water there.

Going around, remember how I told you.

I get my brush near the edge.

I have quite a bit of water on here.

I probably could have dried my brush a little bit before I did that.

This mossy green, one of my favorite colors to put next to that is really pink, but I didn't do that today.

It's kind of fun to do this quiet work like this.

This one needs a little more blue with it, I think.

Will it look a lot like the one that we already did?

Maybe.

It's a little darker.

It's a little less turquoise, a little more greenish.

I'm rinsing my brush and wiping it off on a paper towel because I had too much water the last time.

I think I'll get my other set because it has some colors that I have not used.

I might use this one that looks kind of like mustard.

Let me move this down and I'll show you how I put the water in there because some of them have already dried out 'cause I did this early this morning and I just put drips of water.

Most people take water with their brush and put it on, water with their brush and put it on.

But, I like to use my little squeeze bottle 'cause it seems to be more efficient, which means a better job at it.

I'm going to put this color right here.

Oh, yeah.

That one would have been really good next to a green.

Put this one, this eccentric circle that is not in the center.

It's on the outside of the center of this circle.

Mixing it in, oh, I really like that color together.

Now, I think I will use purple.

It's got a nice dip in there, going to go around here.

Remember how I said put the edge of the brush next to the line and I can dip in, get more paint, and go next to the line and I'm going slowly.

Look what's happened if I go fast.

Do you think that looks as good as my slow work or do you think it looks better when I go slowly and make the colors be solid?

'Cause that just looks kind of messy.

What do children call that?

Oh, scribble scrabble.

I guess you can even scribble scrabble with paint.

Now, I wonder when you do this, if you're going to paint your entire back ground like the "Several Circles" that Kandinsky did.

The only places that are white are ones that he did intentionally left white on some of the circles and he did a whole night sky in the background, kind of like what we did on Earth Day, but I don't know yet what I'm going to do as my background.

I do see that I think I would like a few more circles drawn.

So, I might get my permanent pen.

The reason that I have to use a permanent pen because the water colors are mixed with water and if you go next to a regular marker, your marker will bleed, that's what it's called, and it will go into the colors that you have.

I think I'll put a couple more of this size maybe.

Oh, if I overlap it now, I wonder what would happen if I mix the color with that.

So, let me do this one and see what happens.

If I mix a color with one that's already there, I'm taking my brush and getting it a little dried out and I'm going to get in with this Navy blue and I'll do the Navy blue right here.

But, I wonder what would happen if I mixed it with the purple.

So, I'm going to put a little purple and this Navy blue in my lid and see what happens with the color, if it will make it very different or just a little blue violet.

Oh, pretty good!

I think I need to mix it in a little bit more so you can see a little difference between the two.

Oh, I like how that looks.

I think I should overlap more and do a little more mixing.

We still have more to paint, but I want to tell you about tomorrow what you'll be bringing.

Tomorrow, when, (coughs) excuse me, when you come, please bring a six inch square of paper.

Let me show you.

I even cut mine so you can see what it looks like.

Let me bring it over.

Here is my pattern.

It's a template of a circle.

It's going to go on top of this circle and I'll draw the circle and cut it out and then when we glue it, we're going to glue it on a black square.

So, if you can bring a black square, a colored square, and a template that just fits inside there, that will be perfect.

So, that's tomorrow's project.

You'll use the six-inch squares, one black and one colored.

The template, you'll bring a permanent black pen, if you have one, otherwise a black crayon.

You'll bring oil pastels if you have them.

Otherwise, you can use your crayons.

Bring scissors and a glue stick.

Now, on Kandinsky's, to do the background, I can go around and make it a night sky kind of like this.

I still have a little blue paint in here if you like the looks of that.

And tomorrow we'll talk more about International Dot Day and Kandinsky's painting.

But, right now, while I'm painting in the background, let's say goodbye to all our friends.

♪ Goodbye see you next time everyone ♪ ♪ Goodbye, see you next time everyone ♪ ♪ Goodbye to you, good bye to you ♪ ♪ Goodbye to you, good bye to me ♪ ♪ Goodbye, see you next time everyone ♪ Boys and girls, thank you for joining me today and talking about Kandinsky and how he heard colors.

He could hear the sound of colors as he painted and we'll talk more about him and his art tomorrow.

If you have time to take a picture of yourself doing your art and send it to me, I would love to see what you have made.

Thank you, boys and girls, and I will see you tomorrow.

Do well in school today.

Have a fun day.

Bye-bye.