Kandinsky Cityscape

Kandinsky is perhaps best known for his abstract work, but I personally love the rich city life paintings he made, such as “Houses in Munich”1. I tried out some pastel chalk pencils for my sample, but I think you could get very similar results with construction crayons. I like the pencils as they can be sharpened and your fingers need never get covered in dust. Starting with a sheet of black paper, ask the students to draw in pencil a horizontal ground line. Afterwards, they are to draw a series of building rectangles that sit side by side. Windows and roofs may be added.2. Ask the students to trace all of their pencil lines with the black pastel, going over each line at least twice to thicken it up.3. When coloring in the buildings, they should choose the brightest and boldest colors – anything except the normal brown and gray. The sky and ground may be experimented on as far as mixing color, but the buildings should be just one flat color.