Try this fun and easy Paul Klee art project for kids by collaging cities onto a colorful chalk background. Project and post by Catalina Gutierrez of Redviolet Studio.
Updated May 2025
I love pairing art activities with children’s books. They always inspire me to try new projects.
One of my favorites is The Cat and the Bird, a beautifully illustrated story inspired by the artwork of Paul Klee. The vibrant pages and abstract style immediately got me thinking about how we could bring the story to life through art.
After reading the book to the children, we had a great discussion about cities—what we see in them, from tall buildings and tiny houses to people, trees, animals, and more. This conversation set the stage perfectly for our project: creating our own cities using collage!
Inspired by Klee’s playful shapes and bold colors, the children designed cityscapes by layering cut paper and mixed media. It was a wonderful way to explore composition, creativity, and the idea that cities can be just as imaginative as art.
A Paul Klee Art Project for Kids
MATERIALS
- Black Sharpies
- Chalk pastels
- Heavy weight white paper
- Colored paper
- Scissors
- Glue stick
- Sticker paper (or sticker labels)
INSTRUCTIONS
- Create backgrounds for your Paul Klee art
Start by bringing out the pastels and the paper and invite the kids to cover the whole surface. This will be the background to their cities.
Some kids chose one single color, while others used multiple colors to make lines and other shapes that represented buildings, trees, mountains or houses.
Tip: Show the kids how they can use their fingers to smudge the chalk pastels after applying them onto the paper.
- Cut out shapes for your cities
Once they are done covering all of the paper with the pastels, bring out colored paper and scissors.
I pre-cut a few shapes like triangles, squares and rectangles. I wanted to show the kids how they could start building their houses or buildings and add them to the paper.
Some children cut their own shapes and made their unique structures that would then become part of their cities.
- Glue buildings and houses onto paper
After all of the shapes are cut out, begin gluing them onto the paper. These form the different houses and buildings to make the cities interesting and all so different from one another.
I brought in some sticker labels and invited them to cut windows and doors and draw on these with black sharpies.
- Display!
Once finished, you can display your colorful city collages all together in a vibrant city of their own.
I hope you try this Paul Klee art project for kids, it’s really easy to set up and the process is lots of fun!
More Art Projects Inspired by Famous Artists for Kids
- 12 Art Projects Inspired by Famous Artists
- The Best Children’s Books About Artists
- How to Make Frida Kahlo Portraits for Kids
- How to Make Picasso Collages
- Joan Miro’s Magic Animal Masks for Kids
- Dot Paintings inspired by Yayoi Kusama
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