Collage Self Portraits with Crayon Resist Background

My example

I decided to have the kids do self-portraits. Th kids were given a piece of tagboard and told to color the whole thing heavily with crayon. They were told not to draw anything too detailed. Then they did Crayon Resist with watered down Tempera Paint or Water colors.

Four shades of construction paper were provided and they were asked to choose one for their skin. An oval template was placed on the skin color paper and traced. Then a neck and shoulder template was also traced. After cutting out these templates, they pasted them on to the crayon resist background.

They were asked to draw eyes and mouths on white paper. They were encouraged to draw lips, as well as teeth and to make sure their irises were large enough. They pasted the eyes into place, then drew on eyelashes. The mouths were pasted on next , followed with the nose being drawn on.

Next, they used the neck and shoulder template to sketch a shirt and then used tempera paints to color them in. When they dried, they cut them out and pasted them into place. They were given a choice of strips of construction paper in various colors for hair. They also could choose from some yarn I had. Once the hair was in place, they were to draw whatever they wished on the background or to add whatever they wanted. ie: hats, birds, butterflies, planes, etc.

I really loved the results from this project. They were all so unique and colorful. I think this was my favorites project of the year.

Kendall, Kindergarten

Kenny, First Grade

Amanda, Second Grade

Cut Paper Turtle Collages

Elibern, Kindergarten

I abandoned trying to teach Art concepts after my first Art class on Shapes and Lines. They had a hard time following directions in my abstract coloring project from this awesome book, Drawing with Children It was very similar to this "draw three lines from one edge of the paper to another, draw seven dots, and draw a circle that intersects another mark on the page." The kindergarteners didn't seem to understand what I was trying to say about lines. They were not engaged at all. I just didn't have the skills to keep them engaged at that point. So I decided to try and do a collage with my K-2 class.

Before class I printed out some turtles on construction paper. I gave them the turtles to cut out. It was good cutting practice for the kindergarten class. I asked them to decorate the turtles. I also gave them a piece of gray paper, had them cut out a rock shape. Once the rock was cut out, I had them crumple it up to give it some texture. The they smoothed it out again and used it with their collage. I used some stamps to create patterned paper which the kids could use to add foliage and flowers.

I heard a lot of "I don't know what to do" and "I don't know how to cut out a leaf/flower". I makes me wonder how much other parents encourage their kids to draw, cut, color or paste. I think it is an important part of learning, so I often encourage my girls to make things. I hope that other parents are doing the same. The kids had a great time and were much more engaged in this project than the previous week.

Here are a few of my favorites...

Amanda, Second Grade

Karis, Kindergarten (also, my daughter...lol)

Sara, First Grade