Collage -2nd grade

Before embarking on a new unit I usually have students play with the media some so that I can get a gauge on what their interest and strengths and weaknesses are. In this case students were given Fiskars Squeeze punchers, creative scissors, hole punchers and small punchers along with glue and beautiful fadeless paper. Their assignment was to simply make a collage, any collage on a double blank page of their sketchbook, which in this case is just a composition book. Because I only has about 10 Fiskars punchers I combined the tables and had them work on one extended long table. This allowed more kids easy access to the limited set of materials. 


I was not expecting extreme sophisticated work this first time at bat with collage. It's important that kids get our of the way all the cliche type of ideas and slowly move onto more technically involved aspects of the media. For example, some more advanced students were starting to overlap and use the papers with negative space created when shapes were cut out. Some were using layers and combining simple shapes to make more complex figures. Sophistication only begins to happen once the child has had lots of exposure with the media. Experience cannot be rushed. The kids who are more advanced are often kids who have more freedom to make art at home and access to thee types of materials prior to class. 




Each work below shows overlap, combining simple shapes to make more complex figures, use of paper to detail and the use of overlap to create a sense of space. 

Below, this artist realized that when overlapping a shape with a hole, the color beneath it is revealed through the hole. 

A couple of broken hearts surely hold a narrative. In fact every single one of these collages hold a narrative. 

BY looking at their work I can tell this child found out that when you punch a small circle hole from a larger circle you get a moonlike shape, then chose to use the shape several times. Again, these finding can only one could learned by trying, failing, discovering on one's own. When exploration time is gutted from a unit they lose all these amazing finding. Accidental findings like these add up to an experienced artist. 

Aside from being extremely visually appealing, this collage below surely also holds a narrative.  would be very interested to know or have kids interpret. 

It's no surprise that after our bee unit kids would still be making beehives. 


The artist for the collage below told me it was a Christmas tree. Again, when allowing kids to create their own art from the media you are allowing a much higher level of thinking. Had I provided them with the idea of what to make I would have taken away from them that valuable aspect of art-making. Choice does not always mean all choices for all media at all times. With the limited time I have with them (35 minutes) I can only afford to give them choice in the content, the media must all be the same due to the limited time we have to work together. This level of freedom works for me and the kids. I never tell them what to make art about. Their ideas come from them and as all famous artists they have learned about it's in the ideas where the artist resides. 

Although we were mostly focused on 2d work this artist was so excited about making his collage 3d....I loved his enthusiasm and so it's 3d. 

These are the materials kids had access to today. I believe I will have them make several collages in their book so that all students gain sufficient experience with this media before we begin our final collage. 

4th graders decorate their sketchbooks

kinder insect drawings to paintings

If you would like me purchase my powerpoint presentation for this unit please send $5.00 via PayPal to Miriam.Cutelis@yahoo.com and specify what language (Spanish or English) you would prefer and which email you'd like the presentation emailed to.  Once I share the presentation with you via Google Docs you can copy and change, add or delete any slides to fit your needs. 

Fourth graders practice drawing parrots, our school mascot, in preparation for printmaking

You               One fourth grader's printmaking design will be chosen to be in the back of the yearbook this year. We began with a discussion on what makes an expert? I knew from having done this project (or similar) that kids this age are very hard on themselves when they don't produce a perfect drawing. Even in following a Youtube tutorial they were getting quite upset that their drawing was not like the one in the tutorial. They were being very hard on themselves. The next set of 4th graders I gave markers, the permanent kind. Kids relaxed a bit knowing their mistakes could not be changed. I also have tons of quotes about the value of mistakes posted all around the art room. 

One child who would not even begin drawing, I placed him at the old projector a mom gave me last year. He was so excited that he was able to produce his drawing. I know tracing is looked down upon in general; even I don't generally allow it. But in this case, the child was not making even one mark. This was one way to get him drawing. 

My next assignment was going to be using their sketches and then making skinny versions of them, thicker versions of them, mixing and combining features from various birds. The idea behind this exercise would be to allow the young artists to mix and match their favorite features and in this way really making a unique parrot, not just a copy they copied off of google images or youtube. 

We use a basic composition book as a sketchbook, they are affordable, durable and not as intimidating as say a real sketchbook might be. 

Here, this child started playing around with changing wing placement of the bird and changing the style of the feathers in the wings. My next week's lesson already being discovered by a select few of kids who are way ahead of me already. 

SaveSaveSaveSave

Kinder printmaking continues

Children in Kindergarten will be making stamps of insects for their final printmaking project. As all projects, we begin with sketches. This class we focused on connecting simple shapes and lines to make insects. Children were offered hundreds of resource images to look at and be inspired by to make their drawings. They were to make 10 drawings of 10 different insects during a 35 minute class. The next class they will choose one of these to illustrate on a sheet of 4"x6" scratch foam. Making of the printing plates will take at least 2 days seeing as the focus will not only be on drawing the insect but also in thickening the lines and coloring in some areas so that the printing plate is both interesting, visually pleasing and somewhat complex with lines and shapes in all areas of the printing plate.