4th grade artists looked at the work of an African American artist named Romare Bearden to inspire their own work. Bearden lived and worked in Harlem, a neighborhood in New York City. We looked at and discussed one of his collage artworks called "The Block."
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| Romare Bearden, The Block (1978) |
Students noticed that there were many different buildings and details -- windows, people, signs, etc. Students also noticed that some of the buildings looked like they were made of different materials. We discussed how the street in a city is very busy, with many different kinds of buildings, such as apartments, restaurants, and stores. Although you can tell that it is a city street, some of the colors, proportions, and views are not completely realistic. For example, some parts of the buildings are cut out so that you can see what is happening inside, and the light bulb in one of the rooms is much larger than the people around it. The longer we looked at it, the more there was to see!
Then we began our own mixed media collage artwork, using a long piece of construction paper to start the city street. There were many different materials to choose from, including construction paper, corrugated paper, metallic paper, fabric, felt, tissue paper and foam. Many students began with a road and added buildings on top, overlapping different shapes and materials.
Students added other details to their street, such as traffic lights, stop signs and pets.
After they were done with their mixed media collage, students used a skinny Sharpie to add details such as window frames and signs. Below are some examples of our finished collage city streets, inspired by Romare Bearden.
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| Maria, 4th Grade (Mattson) |
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| Aysha, 4th Grade (Doherty) |
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| Connor, 4th Grade (Doherty) |
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| Kingston, 4th Grade (Doherty) |
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| Mackenzie, 4th Grade (Doherty) |
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| Mayck, 4th Grade (Doherty) |
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| Stefano, 4th Grade (Graves Pelletier) |
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| Tamia, 4th Grade (Graves Pelletier) |
