Creating an Art Quilt with Hand-Mixed Colored Squares

Two weeks ago the children got messy mixing primary colors (red, yellow and blue) and discovered what secondary colors they created. They also got to experiment with mixing based on their own color choices. They could choose from both primary and secondary colors for this. This fun class project left us with sheets and sheets of beautifully painted paper of all different colors. This weekend I cut these up into squares of varying sizes so that the kids could make art quilts this week.

The children began by filling their paper with a checkerboard of the largest squares. They were asked to really notice how the colors looked together and to choose combinations that they liked.

Once the paper was filled, they layered a second smaller square on top -- again with an emphasis on personal color preference. Finally the children were asked to add a third very small square on top.

Here are the results! Please try to ignore the glue-- I took these pictures in class today and the art was not yet dry!

As you can see there were a wide variety of color preferences in general -- as well as quite a variety of what the children liked in terms of color combinations. It is amazing to see how strong and unique color preference can be, even at such a young age.