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| Collage Mixed-Media Fish. Kids 7-9 |
Elizabeth St. Hilaire makes the most beautiful painted collages. I find her use of color, texture, and pattern thrilling and inspiring. See her work here.
I wanted my kids to explore painted collage and knew this was the direction I wanted to go in.
This was a super fun project that my youngest age group (ages 7-9) really enjoyed. It's a relatively simple project with big results. They could get their hands dirty, rip and tear paper, stamp and print with different materials, and in the end, create an adorable, bright fish.
A fish is a good subject for this project because of its simple and easily recognizable shape. With a simple contour drawing of a fish, my kids were ready to start collaging.
1. Students chose a picture of a fish. They drew out the basic shape of their fish on mixed-media paper. The fish should be big and centered.
2. Student chose many different papers and started tearing (no cutting!) these papers to fill their fish.
--Papers must overlap, so no white drawing paper shows through.
They started with bigger bits of collage, and added smaller bits over top for detailing. Along the edges of their fish, they had to tear very carefully, and paste their paper right on the contour of their fish drawing. The goal here was to create a clean finish, so collage papers had to line up nicely with each other and flow into one another, in order to preserve the contour of their fish.
--Students were encouraged to choose a variety of pattered and painted paper, and to repeat these papers at least once for harmony. A paper with lots of white must also be used, to provide for 'visual rest' in an otherwise very busy and bright composition.
*This age group can have trouble tearing paper for precision. I showed them how to "pinch" the paper between both hands, using pointer fingers and thumbs, and make tiny short and precise tears. Pinched pointer fingers and thumbs of both the left and right hands should touch, as though they are "kissing". This allows for a very small and precise tear.
3. The eye was painted with black acrylic paint and a detail brush. A white reflection spot was added.
4. The background was painted in a mix of blues, greens, yellows and white to create a soft turquoise color.
5. Once the background was dry, the fun started. Students chose different printing and stamping elements to add texture to their backgrounds.
--Some items we used were bubble wrap, wine corks, lego pieces, corrugated cardboard and rubber stamps.
--We used dark blues and greens for this, and them 'softened' and 'pushed back' these textures by painting another layer of light turquoise, light blue and white over top. This allows us to still see the texture underneath, but it's soft and subtle.
--For a final texture touch, we stamped bubble wrap with white paint for some air bubbles.
6. The last step was to emphasize our fish and allowing it to 'pop' by outlining it with a piece of vine charcoal. We lightly smudged the edges with our fingers for a soft finish.
We went home feeling proud of our adorable, bright, vibrant fish. The various textures and patterns give them so much interest!
Thanks Elizabeth St. Hilaire!
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| Printing and stamping texture |
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| Outlines with vine charcoal |
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| Outlining with charcoal |
