Learning about Collage

PK and Kindergarten artists have been learning about shapes this month, as well as the art of collage. Collage is when an artist glues one material onto another to form their picture. 

After learning about a variety of different shapes and reading When A Line Bends, A Shape Begins, we used pre-cut shapes to form a shape monster. After gluing down the shape and adding arms and legs, students used shapes to add facial details like five eyes and sharp, triangle teeth! Below is an example.

Liam, Kindergarten (Martignetti)

The following week, we looked at a painting by an artist named Mondrian. We noticed that he used straight lines and shapes with straight edges, like squares and rectangles. We noticed that he connected the lines around the shapes, and used three main colors -- red, yellow, and blue -- other than white and black. Some students thought the artwork reminded them of a maze, game, or apartment buildings.

Piet Mondrian, Tableau II (1921-25)

We created our own collage using pre-cut lines and shapes, using the same 3 colors that Mondrian used for our shapes. This time we focused on arranging our lines and shapes in different ways to fill up our paper, and we could trim the lines and shapes with scissors or overlap them to make them fit. We learned that with a collage, it helps to put your line or shape down on your paper and think about how you might arrange them before you glue it down. Here are some of our Mondrian-inspired collages!

Dahlia, Kindergarten (Bolton)

Ava, Kindergarten (Bolton)

The third class, we read The Perfect Square and thought about all the different ways the square changes in the book. It starts as a square, but it gets ripped into pieces, crumpled and folded, and cut into separate shapes. These pieces then transform themselves into a collage of something else! 

Students changed paper in different ways to create a variety of shapes to form a collage about whatever they wanted. It could be a person, animal, place or thing. Students began with their idea and thought about what shapes and colors they would need to represent this idea through collage. 

Students thought carefully about how they would combine these shapes together to form their picture. Some students ripped and tore the paper to form their shapes, while other students cut out their shapes using scissors. We learned that there are many ways to change the paper to create a shape. Below are some of the resulting collage artworks!

Gus, Kindergarten (Beatty)

Joseph, Kindergarten (Beatty)

Joshua, PK (Blackwood)

Faye, Kindergarten (Tan)

Ava, PK/K (Blackwood)