Today was the second day we worked on our collage illustrations for our books. Many of the kids wanted to spread out onto the floor, which made the classroom quite a mess!
I did let some of them start gluing, so they don't lose small pieces.
I love how the textured and multi-colored paper gives depth to the illustrations.
We worked for over an hour, and everyone was very productive!
Today, we started using our painted papers to create collages to illustrate our books. Ms. Meredith (our ELL teacher and former Art major) gave the students a demonstration on how to create collages.
The key was not to trace the animal as a whole, but instead to break it into pieces and assemble the pieces into a whole animal.
What a nice school of fish!
Aren't these jellyfish adorable?
It was only Day 1 of collages, and we will probably continue all the way until the end of the year. Just after today though, the kids did great! Stay tuned for a post about their progress!
Yesterday, I posted about our current Author Study about Eric Carle. Since we had finished the writing part, it was time for illustrating. I didn't want to just have the kids draw and color their stories... I wanted it to be the way Eric Carle does his.
Eric Carle uses acrylic paint to paint tissue papers in different colors. He then uses them to create collages for his stories. Here is a brief look of how he creates his papers:
I planned to have one day where we would just paint papers to use. I was really nervous, because I didn't know how the kids would handle such a large and messy project. But, I'm happy to say that it went really, really well!!
I set up all of the expectations before we started, and I had three other teachers in the room for help. I had gathered all of the art materials we would need, and set up tarps and butcher paper on the desks. I put together many different painting "tools" they could use to create textures on their paper. I found sponges, forks (for scratching at the paint), and paper towel tubes (to use as a circle stamper).
Before we started, I had them think about their story's characters and settings, so they would have an idea of what color papers they would need. I also did a demo to show all the different tools and techniques they could use to create their papers.
Once we let them work, it was (surprisingly) a very calm environment. They were very focused on their work!
We let them paint for about an hour and a half (they would have gone longer, but we ran out of drying space!) After we filled the two drying racks I borrowed from the art teacher, we used every spare corner of the classroom to dry papers.
Cleanup was a breeze. All of the kids really pitched in to pick up the butcher paper, clean the brushes and sponges, and wipe down the desks and chairs.
The next step of our book making process is to let the papers dry and then use them to create collages on their final drafts. I'll keep you updated!
Have you done an Author Study before? What sort of project did you do for it?
