Chris Hagan Owl Collages (2nd Grade)

I'm a Pinterest'in fool, just like every other Art teacher out there. I love seeing all of the wildly diverse and inspiring projects, and I'm not afraid to admit that I beg, borrow, and steal from both the internet and from teachers for whom I've covered. (Long-term sub positions are a great opportunity to see how other teachers organize their classrooms and to pick up a few new project ideas!)

All that being said, on occasion I do manage to come up with a lesson of my own that I end up loving. These colorful 2nd grade owls are one of those projects.

I was looking for a collage project for my kiddos when I came across the work of Brighton, UK artist Chris Hagan. Y'all, I absolutely LOVE his work: bright, colorful, magical, textural, and very reminiscent of both Henri Rousseau and Marc Chagall. His illustrations are wordless folktales. They truly speak volumes. In fact, I was so enamored of his work that I skipped right over to his Etsy shop and bought the print below. (I've felt a connection to Tennyson's lily maid since my Victorian Lit class in undergrad. I can recite all 171 lines, people.)

Chris Hagan, The Lady of Shalott (c. 2015), mixed media collage

So anyway, after spending a good half hour drooling over his gorgeous textured paper and whimsical colors, I decided he would be a terrific contemporary artist to whom to introduce my second graders. We started by talking about artist inspiration and compared Hagan's "Tyger, Tyger" to Henri Rousseau's "Tiger in a Tropical Storm."

The kids were quick to pick up on the similarities in style: both artists are inspired by nature, use bold shapes and patterns/repetition, and stylize their subjects. They also noticed the differences: Rousseau chose a more natural color palette, while Hagan uses bright, intense colors; Rousseau painted in oils, while Hagan often textures his own paper for his collages. (He also paints in gouache and watercolor.) We ended our discussion by talking about the difference between being inspired and simply reproducing another artist's work. After all, even at 8 years old, I want my young artists to begin making their own decisions about their art and how they will express themselves visually.

Chris Hagan - Tyger, Tyger (2014), mixed media collage
(Seriously...beautifully intense color and references to my favorite poets?)

Henri Rousseau - Tiger in a Tropical Storm (1891), oil on canvas

After our artist discussion, we looked at more of Chris Hagan's work and drew inspiration from his "An Owl in the Jungle," thinking about how we could create our own whimsical, brightly-illustrated collages.

Chris Hagan - An Owl in the Jungle (c. 2015), mixed media collage

You know how you always wonder if a project will turn out in real life as well as it's come together in your head? This was one of those. But my young artists and I were not disappointed. I absolutely adore the vivid contrast between the bright, colorful owls and the monochromatic winter sky and birches!

Here they are - a few of our "Owls Among the Birches." (We live in Pennsylvania, after all, haha. I should confess that when we began these in mid-autumn, I was planning to have students cut leaves and tree branches from painted paper we'd made earlier in the year, but holidays, field trips, and a six-day Specials cycle proved more powerful than my ability to plan seasonally, so our owls became winter owls. It's all good. The kids loved the idea that their owls were enjoying the snow as much as we all were!)

"This is the most fun ever!"

Those are definitely words you want to hear in the art room. This is the first time I've attempted to splatter paint with my students, and I'm so glad I gave it a go. It was so much fun! (for the kids AND for me!)
This started out as a basic self-portrait project. While talking about facial proportion, Kindergarten and 1st grade students drew themselves during a guided lesson. They then colored with crayon and cut out their self-portraits, and glued these to construction paper in a color of their choice. I encourage them to choose a contrasting color (so no pink if you colored your shirt pink, although it seems the young lady to the left slipped past me).

When these were done, they were cute, but they were missing something. I came across the book, I Ain't Gonna Paint No More!, by Karen Beaumont, with hilarious and illustrations by David Catrow, and decided that we simply MUST splatter our self-portraits!

I had parent volunteers (2 per class) come in to help out, with the painting being done in a centers set-up. We pulled three students at a time, with the others watching Harold and the Purple Crayon or Purple, Green, and Yellow on Tumblebooks (by Robert Munsch, another great story about a girl who colors herself). I put the artwork in boxes (which are now quite colorful and beautiful on the inside), demonstrated for students how to flick the paint, and encouraged them to aim for the edges of their paper (so their faces didn't completely disappear). The adults handled the brush, loading paint and rinsing between colors, which sped things up and kept the yellow from turning green.

I must say that we managed to keep the paint mostly contained (though a few kids ended up a tiny bit speckled), the students loved it, and so far no teachers have yelled at me. And the results are pretty darn cute, too.

I have about 175 kinders and 1st graders, so here are just a few:

Recycled Collages!

In celebration of this amazing planet we call home (and because there was a poster competition...), 3rd-5th graders made collages out of scrap paper, old newspapers, and other random odds and ends. I sent five posters off to the competition, but the rest were so fabulous that I just had to put them up outside my room (all the ones that were finished - or mostly finished - anyway).

As with any competition that comes our way, I worked in a little curriculum, as well. We discussed a bit of collage technique, such as gluing down objects in the background first and using overlapping to show perspective. Students also had the challenge of combining collage with drawing. I think they did a really nice job, and the project coincided nicely with everything else "Earth Day" that was happening on campus.

Piet Mondrian Collages (K-2)

Students are introduced to the work of Piet Mondrian as we discuss balance, shape, composition and primary colors. Students are given six 12" black strips of construction paper to arrange on white paper (9x12). Three must be horizontal and three must be vertical. I encourage them to vary the space between their strips/lines so that there is variety of size in the squares and rectangles that are created when the lines overlap. (So many students want to arrange their lines in a perfect grid. A number of them want to put the lines right on the edge of the paper, too, so watch out for that.)

Then students use only red, yellow and blue crayons to fill in only six of the shapes in an effort to create a balanced composition.

The examples below are from first grade.

Elmer Collages

Elmer, by David McKee is quite popular with my kindergarten students! After reading the story, we create our own parade of patterned elephants. This is a great opportunity to talk about using shapes to draw (we start with a circle or oval and add legs, trunk, tail, etc.), as well as discussing patterns and repetition. Students also get excellent practice with fine motor skills as they create their detailed patterns and cut, paste and tear to create their collage. I talk about foreground and background, as well, as students cut out their colorful elephant and glue him/her to a construction paper background.

For the background:

• 9x12 blue construction paper (though McKee's scenes have pink, purple and even orange skies!)
• 6x12 green construction paper (students tear across the stop horizontally to create the illusion of hills/grass/etc.)

Self-Portraits (1st and 2nd)

The following self-portrait images were created using tempera paint on white poster board.  This project can be found in How to Teach Art to Children. (I bought the book years ago when I first started teaching art in schools and needed someplace to begin! I still love these self-portraits. This project helps students understand that art is a process that can't always be whipped out in ten minutes - or even one class period - and young artists are always delighted with the results and glad they didn't rush it.)

After studying two or three of van Gogh's paintings and discussing his painting technique and use of color, students draw their self-portrait in pencil, paint it with tempera (a little white glue mixed in thickens the paint nicely), then outline the portrait in black marker to create the dark outlines. The background is prepared separately by cutting tissue paper and creating a collage of analogous colors on another piece of poster board (or any other combination of three colors: warm, cool, primaries, secondaries, monochromatic, complementary values, etc). The portrait is then cut out and glued on top of the background.

This technique is intended to loosely mimic van Gogh's use of bold colors, broad brush strokes (impasto), and bold contour lines in his paintings. Depending on how long a class period is, this project can take 5-7 days.

Materials:

• Two pieces of poster/tag board per student, cut to be the same size (I usually cut a standard size poster board in half, so one poster board per student will do it. However, for the portraits below I used donated tag board that was pre-cut to about 18"x18".)
• Pencils
• Tempera paint
• Brushes (large and small)
• Black markers
• Tissue paper in a variety of colors (I cut it into 1" strips and let them cut shorter lengths)
• Scissors (or students can tear the tissue paper instead)
• White school glue (Glue sticks work, as well, but I like to have students paint over the tissue paper once it's on the board so there's a nice flat finish and there are no loose ends flopping about.)

Schedule:

• Day 1: Show examples of van Gogh's work; discuss the artist, impasto, use of color, etc.
• Day 2: Discuss facial proportions, "bust"; Draw self-portrait in pencil on one piece of poster board
• Day 3: Paint self-portrait; be sure to allow paint to be thick...there should be raised texture, just as in van Gogh's paintings
• Day 4: Trace drawing with black marker (I tell students to trace anything was drawn in pencil.)
• Days 5 & 6: Create background collage with tissue paper (This may take 2 days because of the time it takes to let children choose their three colors - plus, we review the color wheel and talk about analogous colors. It also just takes time to get all of that paper glued down! I recommend having paper clips on hand, or sandwich bags, to keep loose tissue paper together for day 2 of gluing. I have the kids clip their tissue together and lay it on top of their background so we know whose is whose.)
• Day 7: Cut out self-portrait and glue to background; Trim any "hanging" tissue paper from edges of background (I encourage students not to place their self-portrait smack in the middle of the background...place it to one side or even let it fall off of one side and trim it!)

(I adapt this project for kindergarten by having them work much smaller (9"x12" at the largest) and having them color their portrait in crayon and outline in marker. For kinder artists, the project takes three days: 1 - Look at van Gogh's work/Draw self-portrait in pencil/Color with crayon; 2 - Create background collage; 3 - Trace self-portrait pencil lines in marker/Cut out and glue to background.)

Artist: Dyanna, 1st grade

Artist: John, 2nd grade

Artist: Kevin, 2nd grade

Artist: Lara, 2nd grade

Artist: Leandro, 2nd grade

Artist: Parker, 2nd grade

Artist: Stephanie, 2nd grade

Artist: Tyler, 2nd grade