Artist: Paul Klee - Cat and Bird

One of my favorite artist is Paul Klee, his work is simple and complicated at same time. Paul Klee was a Swiss artist and teacher from the early 1900's who liked to turn things he saw into simple geometric shapes. His "Cat and Bird” painting from 1928 is a classic example of his philosophy. Klee grew up in a musical family and was himself a violinist. After much hesitation he chose to study art, not music, and he attended the Munich Academy in 1900. Klee loved to use continuous lines in his work, the cat's head and the bird were drawn with one continuous line . Our lesson experiments with both geometric shapes and color.

Materials: Your choice of materials, we have used the "Cat and Bird" for acrylic painting, watercolor painting. oil pastel, chalk pastel and pencil.

Step #1: Draw a border around the paper. Draw light guidelines down the center and across the middle. Draw a large "W" type shape for cats head.

Step #2: Draw the cats eyes and snout.

Step #3: Draw mouth, neck and whiskers (the whiskers are drawn like violin strings, very geometric). Draw a heart shape nose on the snout.

Step #4: Draw the little bird on the cats head and add a moon or sun above the bird.

Step #5: Use your choice of mediums to finish your project. Check out some of students great interpretations of this work.