Pour It Out with Morris Louis
Explore color mixing and gravity by pouring paint onto your canvas, just like famed Color Field artist Morris Louis did.
Time: 30 minutes+
Grade Level: 2+; adaptable for older students
Art Speak: process, color mixing
DCPS Art Curricula: movement
Look Closely
Look closely at the painting above. What colors do you see? Can you spot places where the colors overlap? What happens when the colors overlap? Maybe you notice that this painting has many different streaks of color atop one another, forming new and darker hues. Artist Morris Louis was interested in making color the main focus of his paintings.
What shapes do you see? You might notice that the colored streaks are vertical (and a little diagonal), meaning they start at the top of the canvas and move to the bottom. Together, the lines form a four-sided shape similar to a trapezoid.
How do you think this painting was made? Morris Louis made Buskin by leaning his canvas against a wall and pouring paint onto it, letting gravity shape the bands of color. He began by pouring paint near the top of the work, below a narrow strip of blank canvas. He then let the paint run right off the bottom of the canvas.
Get To Know Morris Louis
Morris Louis was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1912. As a teenager, he won a scholarship to attend the Maryland Institute of Fine and Applied Arts, from which he graduated in 1932. Louis spent the next three years painting and working odd jobs in Baltimore, including peeling vegetables in a restaurant kitchen, folding clothes in a laundromat, and mowing the grass in a cemetery.
In 1936, Louis moved to New York City, where he met other important artists of the time. He arrived amid the Great Depression, a time in US history when many people were out of work. The federal government created a program called the Works Progress Administration (WPA) to provide unemployed Americans, including artists, with jobs. Louis was hired through the program in 1939, and was paid $91.10 a month to paint.
After several years in New York City, Louis returned to Baltimore around 1943. He got married and eventually moved to Washington, DC. He converted the dining room of his new home into his art studio. Louis got a job teaching art at the Washington Workshop Center for the Arts, where he became friends with other DC artists, especially the painter Kenneth Noland. Louis, Noland, and other painters at the Center for the Arts were interested in making art that focused on color. This group of artists was eventually known as the Washington Color School.
Starting in 1954, Louis developed his signature style of painting: a technique called staining. Staining involves pouring thinned acrylic paint onto an unprimed canvas so that the color soaks into the fabric. This technique was invented by young artist Helen Frankenthaler, whose studio Louis visited during a 1953 trip to New York City with Noland. Frankenthaler laid her canvases on the floor and poured paint on top of them, but Louis decided to lean his canvases against a wall so that gravity made the paint flow downward. For the next several years, Louis experimented with this strategy, creating several series of paintings that explore color.
In 1962, at the young age of 50, Louis was diagnosed with lung cancer at the peak of his career. The cause of his illness was likely prolonged exposure to paint vapors. He died at his home in DC on September 7, 1962.
Make IT!
- Gather your materials. You’ll need a piece of watercolor paper, liquid watercolor paint, a small cup, a water glass or similar tall object, tape, and paper towels.
- Set up your paper. To set your paper upright so that gravity will move the paint downward, find a tall standing object, like a water glass. Tape your paper to the top of the glass so that the bottom of the paper just touches your flat work surface. Place a small stack of paper towels under the bottom edge of your paper to catch excess paint as it drips off.
- Plan your artwork. While Morris Louis relied on gravity in his artwork, he also moved his canvases to direct the flow of paint and was intentional about his pours. Before you start to pour, think about these questions:
- What paths will your pours follow on your paper?
- Will your pours overlap? Will your pours form a shape?
- Where on the paper will you pour? Where will you start your pours?
- Will you cover the entire paper or leave some parts blank?
- What colors would you like to use, and for which pours?
If you’d like, you can plan your painting first by sketching what you want it to look like, using a piece of paper and markers.
- Pour it out! Place a small amount of liquid watercolor in your cup and begin to pour it onto your paper. Use new colors whenever you’re ready, and continue to pour until you’ve finished your painting. How have the colors flowed across your paper? How have they changed as they overlap on the paper? Step back to admire your work, and show it to a friend.
