Classroom Activity

Art Starters: Diego Rivera

Part of Art Tales for Pre-K

When Diego Rivera was a young artist, he traveled to different countries and explored new ways of painting. After his travels, Rivera returned to his home country of Mexico, where he combined new techniques from the places he visited with the traditions of his homeland. This still life includes objects that reminded him of his home in Mexico.

An abstracted jug, bottles, shapes reminiscent of balled up paper or fabric, and a needle-like letter opener are gathered on a wood square in this horizontal still life painting. Rectangles in shades of corn yellow, violet purple, burgundy red-and-black checks, white, black, and spruce green splay out behind the objects like untidily stacked placemats. The brown jug is at the center, and an echo of its form in teal blue presumably represents a shadow. Portions of the jug, wooden board, and crumpled material shift color and pattern as they intersect or overlap with other areas. The artist’s initials, “DMR,” are stenciled in yellow in the lower left corner.
Diego Rivera, No. 9, Nature Morte Espagnole, 1915, oil on canvas, Gift of Katharine Graham, 2002.19.1

Grade Level

Subject

Language

Look

What shapes do you see? Look for circles, triangles, and rectangles.

Do you recognize any of these objects? Which ones?

Which objects can you see from above? Which can you see from the side? Which can you see through?

Pretend you can reach inside this painting and pick up one thing. Which would you choose? What might it feel like?

Read

Not a Box (Spanish language version: No es una caja)
by Antoinette Portis

A bunny explores how a box is not always just a box.

Diego Rivera: His World and Ours
by Duncan Tonatiuh

This book tells the story of Rivera as a young boy who loved art and dreamed of making his community proud.

MAKE: Create a still life collage

You Will Need

  • Heavyweight paper
  • Colored pencils
  • Assorted colored or patterned papers
  • Scissors
  • Glue stick

First, gather three to five objects from around your home. To make your still life more interesting, try to choose objects with different colors, patterns, shapes, and textures. Like Diego Rivera, you might want to include some objects that are special to you. Arrange the objects on a low table so you can see them from all sides.

One by one, draw each object. Focus on simple shapes such as circles, triangles, rectangles, and squares. Try standing in a different spot and drawing some of the items from different viewpoints—from above, below, or another side. You might draw one object on a colored piece of paper and another object on a patterned piece of paper.

Cut out all of your drawings and arrange them on a sheet of heavyweight paper. Once you’re happy with your arrangement, glue the drawings down to create a still life collage. 

Vocab Bank

  • homeland
  • object
  • pattern
  • still life
  • viewpoint

Download

Art Tales: Coloring and Cut-Outs booklet (PDF, 3.5 MB)

Art Tales for Pre-K (PDF, 7.2 MB)

Primeros Pasos En El Arte (PDF, 7.5 MB)

Primeros Pasos En El Arte: Colorear y Recortes (PDF, 3.7 MB)

An Eye for Art: Diego Rivera teaching resource (PDF, 9.4 MB)
 

Visit

Register for the Art Tales pre-K school tour

Submit Student Work

Send images of your students' projects that follow these activities - email [email protected]

You may also like

This nearly square, abstract painting is filled with circles within circles, like nested rings, each of a single bright color against the ivory white of the canvas. Each ring is made up of a series of short, rectangular dashes, and some bands are narrower while others are a bit wider. The majority of the rings are crimson and brick red, and they are interspersed with bands of lapis blue, army green, and pale pink. One of two pumpkin-orange bands is the smallest, innermost ring at the center. There is one aqua-blue colored ring just inside a pale, shell-white ring, which is the first to get cropped by the edges of the canvas. A few red, green, and blue rings beyond the white band are only seen at the corners of the canvas.

Educational Resource:  Art Tales: Alma Thomas

A lesson for preschool to kindergarten students about artist Alma Thomas’ painting Pansies in Washington. Students learn how to look at this painting, what you can read to learn more, how to create a color square, and a list of vocabulary terms related to this activity.

Two angular, cream-white buildings flanking a central, stylized tree are surrounded by brown soil, small animals, and farmhouse objects like watering cans and buckets beneath a clear, azure-blue sky in this square landscape painting. We look straight onto the buildings and slightly down onto the earth in front of us. About a third of the way up the composition, the horizon is lined with trees and mountains in the deep distance. The long, spindly branches of the central tree nearly reach the top edge of the painting and abstracted, sickle-shaped leaves are silhouetted against the sky so no leaves overlap. The far edge of the whitewashed structure to our left is cropped. The façade is pierced by two small rectangular windows and an arched hatch at the top under a winch. The back end of a horse is visible through an open door at the bottom center. Horizontal bands in front of the building suggest furrows in plowed earth, and a single stalk of corn grows up into the scene, seeming close to us. A pen protected by netting stretches out in front of the second structure, to our right of center. That wood-frame building has a triangular peaked roof, and the left half is open, like a lean-to. A goat, rooster, birds, and several rabbits occupy the pen. Watering cans, buckets and pails, a hoe, newspaper, lizard, and snail are spaced around the buildings. A tiny stylized person, perhaps a baby, appears in the distance between the buildings near a well where a woman works. A covered wagon, a round mill, trees, and plants fill the rest of the space between the buildings. A disk-like moon hangs in the sky to the right of the tree. The artist signed and dated the lower left corner, "Miro. 1921-22."

Educational Resource:  Art Starters: Joan Miró

A lesson for preschool to kindergarten students about artist Joan Miró’s painting The Farm. Students learn how to look at this painting, what you can read to learn more, how to create a collage, and a list of vocabulary terms related to this activity.

A small brown dog and a pale-skinned little girl wearing a white dress sit in matching celestial-blue armchairs in this horizontal painting. To our right, the girl sits with her legs angled to our left. She slumps back with her legs spread, and her left elbow, on our right, is bent so that hand rests behind her head. Her other elbow is draped over the armrest. Her dark brown hair appears to be pulled back, and tawny brown eyes under faint brows gaze down and to our left. She has a small nose set in a round face and a coral-pink mouth closed in a straight line. Her white dress has touches of gray, soft pink, and powder blue with a wide plaid sash around her waist. The pine-green, black, and sapphire-blue sash is accented with overlapping vertical and horizontal lines of burnt orange, light blue, and mustard yellow. Her socks match her sash and come up to mid-calf, over black shoes with silver buckles. The small dog has scruffy black fur and a russet-brown face. It lies curled in the chair opposite the girl, to our left, with its eyes closed and ears pricked up. The rounded backs of the upholstered chairs curve down to become the low arms. The vivid and light blue fabric of the chairs is scattered with loosely painted strokes of avocado and forest green, peach pink, cherry red, plum purple, and white. Beyond the chairs closest to us is another armchair and an armless loveseat, both covered with the same fabric. They sit at the back of the room, in a corner flooded with silvery light coming through four windows on the right side. The furniture is arranged on a peanut-brown floor. The artist signed in the lower left, “Mary Cassatt.”

Educational Resource:  Art Starters: Mary Cassatt

A lesson for preschool to kindergarten students about artist Mary Cassatt's oil painting Little Girl in a Blue Armchair. Students learn how to look at this painting, what you can read to learn more, how to paint your own quiet moment, and a list of vocabulary terms related to this activity.