Jennifer Bartlett

This Month in
Art Literacy
Jennifer Bartlett
Jennifer Bartlett
1941American Artist and Painter
I
n 1978, the Whitney Museum of American Art in
New York identified a group of young artists,
including Jennifer Bartlett, as “New Image Artists.”
These new faces on the New York art scene presented
works of art that were simple and restrained, with
content that was more evocative than obvious in
meaning. Their styles were not original, but rather
their techniques and ideas were mixed and matched
from existing modern art examples, taking the familiar and making it seem fresh and new.
From her earliest works, Jennifer Bartlett has evolved
into an artist whose free-thinking individuality creates
art that continually changes, sometimes confounding
her critics. What has remained constant, however, is
her love of vivid color, intense light, and loose brush
strokes. Her earliest works were enamel-on-steelplate pieces such as her major work, “Rhapsody,” a
987-piece installation first exhibited in 1976. It contained themes, shapes, and colors all laid out in specific order that combined with each other to create a
work that helped define the modern art of the 1970s.
Later works have included several series in which the
same scenes or themes are repeated.
Since the early 1980s, Jennifer Bartlett’s work has
focused primarily on site-specific installations in such
diverse places as corporate headquarters, museums,
and private homes around the world, including a
major work for the ceiling of a Buddhist temple in
Japan. She makes the viewer an active participant in
her art, leading the eye around her patterns and progressions. She currently divides her time between
New York and Paris, and she continues to create
works of art that both delight and exasperate.
Vocabulary
Installation—A multi-piece artwork placed in a
gallery or other location, and meant to be seen in its
entirety. Installations must take into account the physical features of the space, arranging the art around such
features as doors and windows.
Series—Individual works of art that share the same
concept or image but are created separately over a
period of time.
Revised 07/03
Theme—A concept or image that repeats through a
single work of art, or is repeated through several individual works of art.
Triptych—(pronounced trip-tik) In art, a set of three
panels, side by side, bearing pictures or carvings. A
triptych can show one single image laid out across all
three panels or, as in Jennifer Bartlett’s work, it can
show the same image from slightly different vantage
points.
Art Elements
Color—Color is a property of light. It has three characteristics: hue, value and intensity. Hues are primary
(red, yellow, and blue) or secondary (orange, green and
purple). Value refers to the lightness or darkness of a
hue. Intensity refers to the purity of hue. Jennifer
Bartlett uses color to create shapes in her paintings. She
also uses color to evoke mood. For example, when she
uses warm colors such as red or yellow (which tend to
advance), her art evokes energy and excitement. Her
use of cool colors such as blue or green (which seem to
recede) gives the art a sense of calm peacefulness.
Shape—Shape is an area that is contained within a
line, or is seen because of color or value changes.
Shapes can be either geometric or organic (free form).
Shapes can be positive or negative. Abstraction often
reduces things to their simplest shapes. Jennifer Bartlett
repeats simple shapes in her paintings, both within individual works and within all the works in a series.
Art Principles
Pattern—Pattern is created by the repetition of art
elements within a work of art. Jennifer Bartlett uses
patterns to organize the images in her paintings. In
many of her works, she begins with a grid (itself a pattern of squares), and then fills it in with irregular patterns of brush strokes.
Repetition/Rhythm—Rhythm is created by the repetition of elements-colors, shapes, lines, values, forms,
spaces, textures. Even spacing of similar elements creates a regular rhythm. If they are unevenly spaced, the
rhythm is irregular. When the uneven spacing has
abrupt changes, it creates a staccato rhythm. Variety is
essential to keep rhythms exciting and to avoid monotony. Bartlett uses repetition to create pattern and rhythm
in her paintings, and in her major work, “Rhapsody,”
she repeats themes in ordered sequences.
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Jennifer Bartlett
J
ennifer (Losch) Bartlett was born in 1941 in Long
Beach, California. When she was five years old,
she announced to her mother that she was going to be
an artist and live in New York. Her father was a
pipeline construction engineer. Her mother was a
commercial artist and fashion illustrator, but she
stopped working when Jennifer, the oldest of four
children, was born.
In her youth, Bartlett spent time on the surfing beaches of Southern California and was briefly a cheerleader at Long Beach High School. In school, she
established a reputation as a non-conformist and an
arguer, as well as a budding artist. She began to doubt
the notion of male supremacy and became fearless
about trying anything to achieve her goals.
After spending time at Mills College in Oakland,
Bartlett entered a graduate art program at Yale
University in New Haven, Connecticut in 1963. In the
late 1950s and early 1960s, Yale had a reputation for
attracting the most adventurous art students. Guest
teachers included contemporary modern artists with
widely different approaches. In addition, Manhattan
was less than two hours away by car, and students
were encouraged to visit the art galleries and museum
shows that provided all sorts of new artistic influences. With such resources at her disposal, it did not
seem such a gamble for Bartlett to consider a serious
career as an artist. She graduated with an MFA in
1965 with just that ambition.
While at Yale, she married Ed Bartlett, a student she
met at Mills College, but by 1972 they were divorced.
After graduation, Jennifer got a teaching job at the
University of Connecticut at Storrs. She also spent as
much time as she could in Manhattan. She finally
rented herself a loft in a grimy, rundown area of New
York now known as SoHo.
Jennifer Bartlett’s early work was influenced by the
experimentation, styles and ideas of her friends, all
young artists working in New York. “I liked all of it,”
she recalled, from earth art and body art (using the
landscape or one’s body as art materials) to conceptual art (mathematical, linguistic or philosophical concepts that did not take on any material form). It was a
time of great uncertainty and confusion, with dozens
of young artists searching for that unique something
that would single them out above the crowd.
Revised 07/03
Biography
Bartlett even tried writing, thinking that it would be
easier than painting. She wrote a long four-part essay
called “Cleopatra” (it was published in 1971 by a
small, New York press). She then began work on her
autobiography, an open-ended document that would
eventually turn into a thousand-page autobiographical
novel entitled The History of the Universe.
Trying out different things and being attracted to all
art forms was a disadvantage for Bartlett in the competitive New York art scene. One of the problems with
her own work was that other people’s ideas interested
her too much; she had trouble thinking up her own. In
late 1968, she hit upon using steel plates as the basic
module for her paintings. She wanted a simple, flat,
uniform surface to paint on, a surface that did not
require wooden stretchers, canvas, and all the bothersome paraphernalia of oil paint. “I thought that if I
could just eliminate everything I hated doing, like
stretching canvas, then I’d be able to work a lot more”
she later explained. It also enabled her to create an
infinitely expandable painting surface that came in
manageable units. She tried a number of different surfaces–wood, plastic, aluminum–before settling on
one-foot-square steel plates coated with a layer of
white baked enamel (much like the signs in the New
York subway stations, which is where she got the
idea). The plates were then overprinted with a silkscreened grid of light gray lines so they resembled
graph paper.
The paint that she found to use on the baked enamel
surface was Testors enamel, a paint sold mainly in
hobby stores for model airplanes and cars. She
applied her colors to the plates in the form of dots in
strictly planned combinations and progressions. By
1970 she had produced hundreds of painted steel
plates and showed them in gallery spaces as multipart series paintings.
During the summer of 1975, Bartlett arranged to
house-sit for some friends in Southampton, on Long
Island’s south shore. In exchange for taking care of
the garden and main house, she had the use of a small
cottage on the property. She laid in a large supply of
steel plates and began to work on a painting “that had
everything in it,” becoming so absorbed with her
work that she allowed the garden to dry up. The
resulting work, containing 987 separate plates and
entitled “Rhapsody,” was exhibited in 1976 at the
Paula Cooper Gallery in New York. The critical
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Jennifer Bartlett
acclaim it received was unprecedented, and on the
third day of the show, the piece was sold to collector
Sidney Singer. Jennifer Bartlett had come into her
own as an artist.
Following this success, Bartlett created a series of
paintings that continued to use the house image first
seen in “Rhapsody.” Then came the “swimmer”
paintings, with their elongated oval shapes. These
new paintings were still multi-piece creations, but
they now had a dual format: enameled steel plates
side by side with painted canvases. “I hadn’t painted
on canvas in years,” she said, “so I decided I’d just try
it,” taking great care to match the colors of oil paint to
the enamel paint used on the steel plates. The oval
shaped “swimmers” were either incorporated into the
design on the surface of the painting, or were separate
oval canvases glued to the surface of the work.
Biography
Bibliography:
Jennifer Bartlett, Marge Goldwater, Roberta Smith and
Calvin Tompkins, © Walker Art Center, Minneapolis,
Abbeville Press, New York
Rhapsody, Jennifer Bartlett, Introduction by Roberta Smith,
© 1985, Harry N. Abrams, Inc, Publishers, New York
Jennifer Bartlett’s paintings in the 1980s continued to
be combinations of plates and canvases. Her canvas
paintings were often triptychs that showed the same
scene from different vantage points or showed sections of the same scene painted in different styles.
Often, three-dimensional objects were included that
mirror images in the paintings.
Jennifer Bartlett continues to work and live in New
York City. Her daughter, Alice, was the product of a
second marriage during the 1980s to French actor,
Mathiew Carrière (the marriage ended in the early
1990s). She assigns herself monumental tasks, and
continues to be interested in learning and experimentation. Looking over the art she has created in the past
30 years, it can be said that fearlessness is her
greatest strength.
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Jennifer Bartlett
Scanning Questions
Scanning Slide
Swimmer Lost at Night (for Tom Hess)
1978, overall size 78” x 317”, 40 plates
baked enamel and silkscreen grid on steel plates
2 canvases,The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Art Elements: What you see.
Color
•
•
How has Bartlett drawn attention to the “swimmers” in this work? (The oval shapes are painted bright,
warm colors, making them stand out on the darker background surrounding them.)
How has she used color in the background surrounding the “swimmers”? (She has added streaks of white,
yellow and red over the dark background.)
Shape
•
•
What kinds of shapes do you see? (Geometric shapes: the oval “swimmers,” square plates organized into
rectangular groups, rectangular canvases.)
Where are positive shapes? (The red ovals.) Where are negative shapes? (The dark areas surrounding
the ovals.)
Art Principles: How the elements are arranged.
Pattern
•
•
Point to a shape that repeats to form a pattern. (The small squares of the plates on the left side; the ovals;
the four tipped rectangles.)
What pattern has been repeated across the entire work? (The oval “swimmers” and the tipped rectangles.)
Repetition/Rhythm
•
•
What is different about the way the oval “swimmer” is repeated from rectangle to rectangle? (The
position of the “swimmer” tips up or down from rectangle to rectangle.) Why? (To give us a sense of motion.)
What, besides the shape of the “swimmer,” repeats from rectangle to rectangle? (The color of the
“swimmer” and the color of the background; the bright streaks of yellow, red and white above and below the
“swimmers” in the background.)
Technical Properties: How it was made.
•
•
What media were used to create this work? (Enamel paint on enameled steel plates, oil paint on canvas.)
How big do you think this painting is? (Very large. Installed over two intersecting walls, it is over 6 feet tall
and more than 26 feet in length.)
Expressive Properties: How it makes you feel.
•
•
How does the painting make you feel? Do you think the “swimmer” is weak or strong?
Would you feel the same way if the painting was installed in a more traditional way, with its edges
parallel and perpendicular to the floor rather than tipped?
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Jennifer Bartlett
Slide Images
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Jennifer Bartlett
1.
Slide List
Jennifer Bartlett
photo c. 1992
This photo was taken of Jennifer Bartlett in the pool at her Greenwich Village home in
New York City. Her house was built in 1912, and was originally a warehouse and office
space for the Pennsylvania Railroad. Her remodel of the space into a home included
structural reinforcement to accommodate several different garden rooms (and the
watering systems to maintain them) and a third-floor indoor swimming pool.
2.
Rhapsody: View of Rows 25-51
1976, overall installation approximately. 7’ x 153’, 987 baked enamel on steel
plates each 12” x 12”, Collection Sidney Singer (Views from 1976 exhibition,
Paula Cooper Gallery, New York City)
While in Southampton, Long Island during the summer of 1975, Jennifer Bartlett worked
steadily on a steel-plate painting that “had everything in it.” Working 12 to 14 hours a day,
she created more than 100 individual plates. Returning to her studio, she continued to
paint through the fall and winter, creating 987 plates in all.
The basic building blocks in “Rhapsody” are the elements color, shape and line, plus four
simple themes: mountain, house, tree and ocean. The huge work was organized into sections, and the various themes repeated throughout the work.
What elements
repeat in this
partial view of
“Rhapsody”?
Jennifer Bartlett never saw the whole work together until it was installed in Paula
Cooper’s Gallery; her loft could only accommodate one third of the plates at a time. It
took a week to install the plates. Although Bartlett never plotted the measurements of the
complete work, it filled the available wall space of the gallery with almost mathematical
precision. A British friend told her he thought the title should have some reference to
music; he suggested calling it “Rhapsody.” The name appealed to Bartlett’s self-deprecating sense of humor. “It was so awful I liked it,” she said. “The word implied something
bombastic and over-ambitious, which seemed accurate enough.”
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3.
Rhapsody: View of Rows 25-51, detail: Mountain Section
In this detail, we can see the repetition of the mountain theme, or elements of the theme,
from plate to plate. She experimented with methods, from dotted peaks (using the pattern
of the silk-screened grid as her guide), to thick, rhythmic freehand linear peaks, to ruled
and measured linear ones. In a series of plates in the third row, the dotted image of the
mountain seems to sink into the desert below. Interrupting her mountain images, she introduced a series of warm color panels, presented from light to dark values. Then, pushing
two panels together, she created a series of larger freehand mountain images. The first, a
traditional realistic landscape rendering, followed by the same image reworked in a freehand linear treatment, then a freehand surface treatment, and finally a freehand dotted
treatment. Next, she introduced the tree theme (but only once) and then returned to the
mountain. She repeated the same basic mountain shape through the next 11 panels, but
introduced new elements to each one—lines , shapes and color. She continued with a
series of cool color panels until returning to the mountain theme, presented again in several styles.
4.
Slide List
Can you find the
mountain theme in
this section of
“Rhapsody”?
Rhapsody: View of Rows 55-77
In this view of the Line Section, we see the repetition of line upon shape. Also visible
are panels that experiment with measured and curved lines over dotted images of her four
themes: mountain, house, tree, and ocean. Following these are five rows of plates showing lines of varying sizes (one-inch, three-inch, and six inch increments) and varying
types (horizontal, vertical, diagonal, and curved).
Below her line plates, Bartlett has created a 16-panel painting divided into four quadrants,
each containing a different type of line. Intersecting all four quadrants are black lines, horizontal, vertical, diagonal and curved, that run into each other creating an odd shape of
their own.
What kind of
shape do the
repeating tiles
make?
On the next wall, she has another series of plates, again running light to dark, but instead
of one pure color per panel, she has layered her colors over a black undercoat. The Line
Segment ends with one long squiggly line extending over seven vertical panels. At the far
right of the slide, we see the start of the House Section.
5.
Rhapsody: View of Rows 55-77, detail: House Section
In this seven by seven plate section, Bartlett takes one image and carries it across all 49
plates. Only four bold colors are used to create a large red dotted house with a black roof,
set above a green lawn and against a blue sky. She has followed the silk-screened pattern
grid on the plates and applied a dot of color inside each grid to create this image. The repetition of the dotted color across all 49 panels also contributes to the vision of these panels as one unified image.
What role do the
red dots play in this
house-themed
section?
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Jennifer Bartlett
6.
Slide List
Rhapsody: View of Rows 99-124
In this section of “Rhapsody,” shape is dominant. Bartlett’s focus is on presenting three
shapes–square, triangle and circle–in every conceivable combination of sizes. The combinations sometimes spread over several plates, so the grid layout of the individual plates
is a little wobbly through this section. The Shape Section demonstrates most vividly what
all of “Rhapsody” really is–a simple demonstration of possibilities among givens.
What effect does
the repetition of
black and white
have?
7.
Rhapsody: View of Rows 99-124, detail: Shape Section
This detail shows how Bartlett’s strict size limitations for large, medium and small renderings of her shapes have forced some combinations to extend across two or three individual plates. Her positioning of shapes next to each other sometimes suggests other
images (such as a medium circle touching a larger circle, suggesting Olive Oyl’s profile).
What other objects can be seen in these shape combinations?
How many different
combinations of circle,
square, and triangle
did Bartlett use?
8.
17 White Street
1977, overall size 116” x 116”, 81 baked enamel and silkscreen grid
enamel on steel plates, Saatchi Collection, London
Jennifer Bartlett loves to repeat images and themes, not only in individual works like
“Rhapsody,” but also from painting to painting. She has used the house image many
times. Here the image is more abstract than the image from the House Section of
“Rhapsody.” Over the top of some of these plates she has applied broad, slashing strokes
of additional color which almost camouflage the house. However, the shape of the house
is painted in a warm red, which makes it stand out in spite of all the other busy brush
strokes surrounding it.
Even though Bartlett has used a limited number of colors in this painting, she’s created
tints (a color mixed with white) of some colors by using the silk-screened pattern grid on
the white plate and applying dots of color within the grid. When the eye sees the colored
dots against the white plate, it registers as a tint of the original color.
Revised 7/03
How does Bartlett’s
use of color contribute
to emphasizing the
house theme in this
composition?
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Jennifer Bartlett
9.
Slide List
Swimmer Lost at Night (for Tom Hess)
1978, overall size 78” x 317”, 40 baked enamel and silkscreen grid,
enamel on steel plates, 2 oil on canvas, The Museum of Modern Art, New York
In the late 1970s, Jennifer Bartlett created a series of more than 20 large paintings in
which she used an oval shape she called a “swimmer.” In this installation containing 42
different pieces, she repeats the image across the entire work, appearing through the
assembly of two 20-plate grids, and again on two separate canvases that follow. Against
the dark, negative shape of the background, color creates the positive shape of the red
“swimmer” that tips either up or down across the assembly, giving the impression of
movement. The fact that the entire assembly has been tipped (not installed with its edges
parallel or perpendicular to the floor) seems to add to this impression.
What repeating
shape represents
the swimmer in this
composition?
Bartlett was very careful to make sure that the colors on the plates matched the colors on
the canvases. The two kinds of paints have different chemistry and appearance. The
enamel, used on the steel plates, is more shiny and reflective than the oil paint used on the
large canvases, but the separation of the two halves on different walls probably makes the
differences less apparent.
10.
At Sea
1979, overall dimension variable, 112 baked enamel and silkscreen grid, enamel
on steel plates, 2 oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Anka
This work is the most abstract of the “swimmer” paintings. While others in the series have
been half plate, half canvas installations, this painting has only two small canvas “swimmers” that overlap the plates. The dimensions of “At Sea” are variable, allowing for the
installation to accommodate any wall space. This view of the original exhibition at the
Paula Cooper Gallery shows the painting installed floor to ceiling in an awkward area over
the entrance and around an electrical fuse box.
The cool blue colors of this painting evoke the feeling of being surrounded by water. The
repeated broad strokes of red, green, yellow and and white over the blue plates gives the
impression of the water reflecting its surroundings, as well as the impression of movement
through the water. Here Bartlett creates a pattern by installing the individual steel plates
from dark to light values. The darker blue panels near the ceiling gradually give way to
the lighter panels near the floor. The only thing that interrupts the patterned grid of the
plates is the shapes of the two “swimmers” attached, seemingly at random, over the top
of the plates.
Revised 7/03
What color pattern
does Bartett establish
with the blue and
blackish tiles?
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11.
Slide List
Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean
1984, Top: Atlantic Ocean: overall dimension 103” x 350”, 224 baked
enamel and silkscreen grid, enamel on steel plates
Bottom: Pacific Ocean: overall dimension 96” x 360”, oil on canvas,
American Telephone and Telegraph Building, New York, Commissioned by AT&T
A T & T commissioned this work for the staff dining room of their headquarters building
in New York City. The two 9 by 30 feet murals are installed on the east and west walls of
the large room, and represent a series of contrasts in light, material and viewpoint.
“Atlantic Ocean,” painted on 224 individual steel plates, presents a distant shoreline seen
from a shifting perspective at sea. Darker at bottom, it shows light moving west as if one
were watching dusk approaching the coast. “Pacific Ocean,” painted on one large canvas,
shows a pre-dawn scene. We see a beach-side view that moves from sand and foam at the
bottom to the darker distant ocean at the top. Together, the repeating theme of these paintings, positioned on opposite sides of the room, take us across the country from sea to sea.
What is the repeating
theme in the top and
bottom parts of
these works?
Color creates shape and shadow in both paintings. The foamy white breakers are distinquished against a darker blue sea in “Atlantic Ocean.” The organic shapes of the white
waves break against the organic brown sand in “Pacific Ocean.” Realistic color, in addition to the grand scale of the paintings, gives us a sense of the oceans’ power and infinite
mass.
12.
Yellow and Black Boats
1985, painting: oil on 3 canvases (overall dimension 120” x 228”);
yellow boat: wood, enamel paint (14” x 60-1/2” x 31”);
black boat: wood, flat oil-based paint (78” x 68” x 38”),
Saatchi Collection, London
This installation shows the evolution of Bartlett’s work during the mid 1980s. She began
to include three dimensional constructions, placed on the floor in front of her canvases, to
reflect whatever she chose as the central image of the painting, as if these objects had fallen–or escaped–into the real space of the gallery. Bartlett has used this pattern of repeated
images in both two- and three-dimensions throughout her work since the 1980s.
This work begins with a triptych, three canvas panels showing a beautiful blue beach cove
from different vantage points. In each panel, we see the blue ocean and the white sand,
but the shore line comes increasingly closer to the viewer from left to right across the
painted panels. In the right side panel, we see two small boats beached along the shore
line. On the floor in front of the triptych, Bartlett has installed a yellow wooden boat laying on its top and a black boat with a slender mast, both mirroring the boat images from
the painted right side panel. Even their relative position on the floor repeats the position
of their painted counterparts. Although working with different mediums (canvas and
wood), she has matched the colors of the painted three-dimensional wooden boats exactly to the colors of the boats on her canvas. It is truly as if the boats in the painting have
fallen off the canvas.
Revised 7/03
Why do think Bartlett
coupled these threedimensional images
with the oil painting?
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13.
Slide List
Boats
1987, painting: oil on canvas, overall dimension 118” x 168”;
boats: painted wood, steel support and pine mast 66-1/2” x 47-1/2” x 46” each,
Paula Cooper Gallery, New York
In this work Bartlett again repeats the central images of the painting in three dimensional
form. Here, she has repeated the color, the relative position, and even the cropped aspect
of the boats. We do not see the entire shape of the boats in the painting, and neither do we
see the complete shape of the three-dimensional boats in front of the canvas.
What theme is
repeated in this
mixed-media work?
14.
Spiral: An Ordinary Evening in New Haven
1989, painting: oil on canvas, 108” x 192”; tables: painted wood, steel
base 39-1/2” x 41” x 35”; cones: break-formed hot-rolled welded steel
20” x 30-1/4” x 21”, 22” x 42-1/2” x 23”, Private Collection, New York
This painting is one of a group that Bartlett calls the Fire series. Created from 1989-90,
every painting in the series depicts images of fire and carries a name or title borrowed
from the poetry of Wallace Stevens. Perhaps this title meant so much to Bartlett because
she lived in New Haven during the most formative period in her early art career.
Because the imagery is of fire, Bartlett’s color palette has shifted to warm reds and yellows, which seem to move the fire towards the viewer. However, the fire does not seem
to be destructive. We see an abundance of organic shapes paraded across the canvas, unaffected by the fire (fish, birds, butterflies).
Which are the
organic shapes?
Which are the
geometric shapes?
We also see geometric shapes on the canvas (tables and cones) which are repeated in
three dimensional form in front of the painting. Bartlett has repeated the size, shape, color,
and relative position of the orange tables and gray metallic cones both in the canvas image
and the three dimensional objects to create a rhythm and a pattern.
15.
Beaver: Man Carrying Things
1989, painting: oil on 9 canvases 24” x 24” each, overall dimension 75” x 75”;
coil: hot rolled steel 28-1/2” x 14” x 14”; grids: welded and rolled steel
5/8” x 9” x 9”, 5/8” x 14” x 14”, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York
In this painting, also from the Fire series, Bartlett continues the pattern of repeated
images in both two- and three-dimensions. Again, against the depiction of fire, organic
and geometric shapes share the visual space. How many organic shapes can the students
see? (Tree, beaver, bird, butterflies.) How many geometric shapes can been seen? (Square
grid patterns, cylinders, coils.) As before, the geometric shapes repeat in three dimensions
on the floor in front of the canvas. Welded and rolled steel grids mirror the painted grids
on the canvas. Steel coil mirrors the painted coil. The warm color palette of red, orange
and yellow moves the image of fire out toward the viewer, but again the fire does not seem
to be destructive. Rather, as it does for steel, the fire gives new strength.
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Which colors stand
out and seem to be
closer to you?
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Hands-on Project
Abstract Triptych
Goal
To create an abstract triptych using repeating shapes and colors to achieve a connection between the two sections.
Criteria
•
•
•
Use only geometric shapes to create the design.
Use either a warm (red, orange, yellow) or a cool (green, blue, violet) palette to create a mood.
Connect all sections of the triptych by repeating shapes and colors on all pieces of the work.
Materials
•
•
•
3 pieces of 3” x 6” grid paper
Bold color markers
4-1/2” x 12” bold-colored construction paper for mounting
Procedure
1. Visualize your design on the three sheets of grid paper.
2. Decide on the mood you want to create and choose the appropriate color palette; warm colors for a happy,
energetic mood or cool colors for a calm, quiet mood.
3. Build your design one grid square at a time using different colored shapes.
4. Make sure your theme/design continues from one piece of grid paper to the other.
5. Add a title to your work in a bottom corner.
6. For display, mount all sections on a single piece of construction paper, allowing space between the pieces
to create a reveal. Make sure your name is on the back of the construction paper.
Note
To simplify this project for younger classes, or in cases of time limitations, create a diptych (two separate but visually connected pieces). All other instructions remain the same.
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Jennifer Bartlett
Hands-on Project
Abstract Diptych
Goal
To create an abstract diptych using repeating shapes and colors to achieve a connection between the two sections.
Criteria
•
•
•
Use some geometric shapes to create the design.
Use a predominately warm color scheme with a few cool color elements, or a predominately cool color scheme
with a few warm color elements.
Connect the sections of diptych by repeating shapes and colors on both pieces.
Materials
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2 pieces of 1 cm grid graph paper, cut to 13 cm squares (5 1/8 inch)
Color markers
6-3/4” x 11-1/2” colored construction paper for mounting
Glue sticks
Student name labels
Procedure
1. Choose a theme and visualize your design on the 2 sheets of grid paper.
2. Choose the appropriate color palette-warm colors for a happy, energetic mood or cool colors for a calm, quiet
mood.
3. Build your design one grid square at a time using different colored shapes.
4. Make sure your theme/design continues from one piece of graph paper to the other.
5. Mount the 2 pieces of paper side by side on construction paper with glue stick. Leave an equal amount of space
(about 1 cm) between the 2 pieces and to the tops and to the outsides. There will be more space below the
graph paper.
6. On the left, below the graph paper, write the title of the piece. On the right, affix the name label.
Revised 07/03
Page 12