Piet Mondrian(Peet MON-dree-ahn)

1872-1944

Mondrian was born in Holland, a small country across the ocean in Europe.

He used black horizontal and vertical lines with squares and rectangles made up of primary colors

(red, yellow and blue) in his paintings.

Mondrian put his shapes and lines on an invisible grid. The grid is made up of lines running

horizontally (side to side) and vertically (up and down).

Mondrian’s black lines and colored shapes fit on his invisible grid horizontally and vertically. A slanted shape does not fit on the grid.

Here you can see how Mondrian used lots of black lines and colored rectangles on his invisible grid.

See how your eye moves around the whole painting?Notice how the lines and colored shapes intersect.

Mondrian made the lines and shapes work together and he used the whole canvas not just one part.

Today you are going to make your own version of a Mondrian painting using shapes and lines.

Have Fun!