Animal collage à la Eric Carle

Grade Level : this lesson was made with 1st graders . But as always it can be adapted with any grade .

Motivation : This lesson was inspired by one of my favorite children book illustrator and author :Eric Carle . You can read one of his books prior to the art lesson .

Materials : * White tissue paper

*Food coloring

* Water

* Some spray bottles

* Construction paper (to draw the outline of your animal )

* White Paper

* Black Paper

* Scissors

* Glue

* Pencil

* Crayons

Vocabulary : Collage : an artistic composition made of various materials (as paper , cloth , wood ,etc ,) glue on a surface .

Outline : drawing of the outer edge of something .

Sketch : rough drawing .

Resources : I found a lot of information about Eric Carle or about lesson ideas on the internet . The most important site would be the Eric Carle Official Webiste . It is a gold mine of information about Eric Carle !
Other websites that have lessons inspired by Eric Carle are the followings :
* Pre-kindergarten lesson
*Another Eric Carle Collage
And I am sure there plenty more out there !There is also a very good DVD about him and his work : Eric Carle:Picture Writer .You can show that to your students .
And of course many of his books are a great source of inspiration for the project !

Eric Carle's Biography: Eric Carle was born in Syracuse , New York , in 1929 , from German parents. He moved back with his parents to Germany when he was 6 years old (His mom was homesick and missed Germany) . He went to school there and graduated from a prestigious art school ( the Academie der bildenden Künste ) Eric Carle missed America and so in 1952 he came back to New York with only 40 dollars in his pocket . He worked as a graphic designer in the promotion department of the New York Times . He also worked for many years as an art director of an advertising agency . After creating an advertisement with a red lobster , the author Bill Martin , noticed him and asked him to illustrate his story Brown Bear , Brown Bear , What do you see ? That's when his career as a book illustrator started . He , then , decided to write and to illustrate his own stories for children , including his famous story : The Very Hungry Caterpillar . This story was translated in 45 languages and was sold all over the world !
Eric Carle's art is created in collage technique . He uses hand-painted papers , which he cuts to create his wonderful and delightful illustrations .
For more information on Eric Carle visit his official website .

Activity : This lesson may be made over 2 days . The first day the children will work on making their own tissue paper using spray bottles and food coloring . The second day they will create their animal .
Day 1 : (1) You will mix some food coloring with water in a spray bottle (you may want to have one or two of each color ).
(2) Every student will have three or four pieces of white tissue paper . They will make their own COLORFUL tissue paper by spraying some food coloring (mixed with water in those spray bottles) on the white tissue paper . (They should not spray too much at a time so their tissue paper will not stick to the table !) They can apply one color to start with , and then add a second or even a little bit of a third color to make their tissue paper .
(3) Let it dry !
Day 2 : (1) Each student should decide what animal they would like to create . It can be an elephant , a turtle , a dog , a cat ,a butterfly , etc.
(2) On a piece of construction paper they should make a sketch of this animal .
(3) They should cut the outline of their animal .
(4) The students should now trace the outline of their animal on their colorful tissue paper .
(5) Step five will be to cut the colorful tissue paper and put it on the white paper . Once they like the way it look they should glue the tissue paper on the white paper .
(6) The students can now add details to their animal with crayons or with a black felt pen .
(7) The final and last step will be to glue the white paper onto a black paper .

Examples : Examples of tissue paper and tissue paper set .....

And her are some examples of animal collages . Enjoy !

Artists paint food .

Grade level : 3rd grade ...but as most art lessons in this blog , this project can be easily be adapted for any grade level .

Motivation : Did you notice the different fruits and vegetables at the supermarket ? Did you notice the different shape and texture they have ? Carrots are long triangles . Potatoes are lumpy ovals . Green beans are long and thin . Tomatoes are circular . What shape are pineapples ? Artichokes ? Radishes ? Pears ? Strawberries ?

Materials : * colored paper
* a variety of colored tissue paper
* white glue (or paste mixed with liquid cornstarch if dealing with small kids )
* brush for applying glue mixture (if dealing with small children )
* white manila paper
* scissors
* black felt pens
*crayons

Vocabulary :

Collage : a picture made by fixing different thing onto a surface , such as a piece of cloth onto paper .

Multiple : more than one .

Arrangement : the way you place things so they look attractive , as in a flower arrangement .

Resources : this project was inspired by a lesson plan of my son's school art docent program . However I applied a few modifications .

You may want to have pictures of fruits and vegetables available (or waxed or real things .)

Here are the artists and the paintings that we are going to look at today :

(1) Walter Williams : (1920- ) He is a painter , print-maker and sculptor . He was born in Brooklyn in 1920 . Maybe he wanted to show us a place where his mom shopped when he was a little boy .
Poultry Market : This painting shows us a portion of a market . Supermarkets have now replaced a number of small stores that specialize in meat and poultry . (Poultry = chickens and turkeys .) It's a bright colorful picture . We see two figures on the right (one of them with the hair repeating the pattern of the rooster's tail .) We also see eggs for sale . The rooster is brightly colored . Can you see the scale ? Can you see several chickens hanging up ready to be sold ?

(2) George Braque : (1882-1963) He was a French artist . His father gave him his first art lesson . With Picasso he founded cubism .
Still Life With Purple Plums : Here we have to look harder to find the food because it is painted in a style called "Cubism" . It is very different from Cezanne's painting "the kitchen table" (see # 4) . It appear to have flatness . It could almost be made of pieces of paper cut and pasted down . The different pieces interlocked each other like a jigsaw puzzle . The top of the table is seen and it almost look like an object could slide off . What shapes are repeated to make a pattern ? Do you see any outlines ? What do you see in the background ?

(3) Romare Bearden : (1914 - ) He was born in North Carolina . He served in the army in WWI and began to paint very flatly . He is an African-American artist .
Summertime : The artist created this composition combining paper and fabric with painted areas to create the mood of summer in a crowded city . Does it remind you of Braque cubism style ? The figure eating ice cream is centered to attract attention . The overall arrangement is in rectangular shapes and strong vertical forms .

(4) Paul Cezanne : (1839 - 1906) he was a French artist . Cezanne was a great artist and was called the "father of modern art" because he changed the direction the painters were going . He was interested in the basic form and structure of things ...
Kitchen Table : Cezanne loved to paint food . In fact , when he did paint people he told them to "sit like an apple" . (He didn't want them to move !) He took a long time to paint his pictures . Sometimes the food would get spoiled before he was finished , so he started using waxed fruits . Here we see fruits , a sugar bowl , and a teapot , in the foreground , and a basket filled with fruits in the middle ground . The table is crooked and the teapot stand at an angle . He distorted (changed) things in order to increase the decorative aspect of his work . The colors are warm , homier , of beauty in everybody's life .

(5) Nicholas Maes : (1632 - 1693) He was a Dutch artist . He was born in the 17th century . He was the son of a well-to-do soap manufacturer . He studied Rembrandt in Amsterdam when he was 16 .
An Old Woman Praying : This old woman is seen praying before she eats the food on the table . The light strikes the head and hands of the old woman who is so absorbed in her prayer that she is unaware of something happening . What is it ? (The kitten is pulling the tablecloth trying to reach the fish on the table .

(6) Johannes Vermeer : (1632 - 1675 ) Vermeer was a Dutch artist . He was born in Delft in 1632 .
The Milkmaid : This milkmaid is seen pouring milk . Other things that you can see are the bread , the jugs , the baskets , the brass pots . The warm yellow along with the warm of the red of her dress is balanced by the cool blues and greens . The repetition of colors helps to tie a painting together .

(7) Harold R. Stevenson : (1929 )
After School : Here we see a little girl having a snack after school . She is dressed in a blue dress with a white apron . We see her in profile . The artist painted many clear and realistic details to tell us about the room . (We see the wooden floor , rug , high-backed chair , flowers in the window , etc .) He even tells us what time it is .

(8) Pieter Brueghel the younger : ( 1564 - 1637 ) He was born in Brussels , Belgium . He liked to paint pictures with pheasants in their daily lives . His dad and his brother were also artists .
Harvest Meal : This pleasant landscape is filled with figures , some eating and some harvesting grain (which will be used to grind and make bread . Noontime . They hurry for more work to be done (no machine yet !)

Activity : 1. Select a piece of paper : white manila paper for the background .
2. Decide which fruits and/or vegetables you'll display in your collage market .Using the colored tissue paper , make multiple cuts , so that you can make a large number of tomatoes , bananas and apples , ... To do this fold the paper several times and cut through several thickness at once .
3. Use glue (or starch mixture ) to adhere neatly each pieces of tissue paper to the white paper . You'll need to plan your arrangement to include bins , racks , trays of vegetables , or baskets . You may even wish to include the grocer , the scale for weighing the fruits or vegetables and the shoppers and shopping carts . What else ?
4. Try to fill the entire space of your paper with cut pieces of paper . You can use colored paper for the bins , etc . You can also use the felt pen and the crayons to add other minor details .

Examples :
© 2010 © 2010

Artists paint people

Grade Level : 2nd graders

Objectives : Students will look at the work of five different artists and then they will create a picture of someone today to show people -200years from now - how people used to dress in 2009 .

Material : * 9" x 12" white paper
* felt or fabric scraps
* pattern gift wrap paper or paper napkins
* wall paper scrap
* oil pastel or crayons
* glue

Resources : (1) "Women in a Garden" by the French impressionist Claude Monet (November 14,1840-December 5,1926)
(2) "Women in Blue" by the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer (October 1632-December 1675)
(3) "Presentation in the Temple" by the Flemish painter Hans Memling (1430-1494)
(4) "The Pantry" by another Dutch painter Pieter de Hooch (1629-1688)
(5) "Don Manuel Osario" by the Spanish artist Francisco Goya (March 30, 1746-April 16,1828)

Ask students to look at all the paintings and ask them what they have in common ?
They were all painted between 1400 and 1800.
By looking at the paintings , what do the students see that is different from people living back then and people living now ?


Motivation :Artists' pictures tell us how people dressed a long time ago . They included many details. Can you do the same ?

Vocabulary : collage / details / figure / mixed-media / fabric

Activity : The students will make a collage of a person living today .For that they will use :
1. the white paper as the background .
2. the felt or gift paper wrap for clothing (pants , shirt , dress , blouse , sweater , etc) They may wish to draw it first on a piece of paper and use their drawing as a pattern for cutting the felt or fabric .
3. the glue to paste the clothing to the white paper .
4. the oil pastels or crayons to draw the rest of the figure . (head , arms , hands , feet , and other details )
The students should try to draw a figure big enough to fill out the paper and they should add as much details as possible .
(you can also add some cotton for extra texture for the clothing .)

Here are some examples :



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