Drawing With Scissors - Matisse Name Collages

For our first project this year I taught my middle school art class about Henri Matisse and his collages. Matisse was a prolific painter whose work is well known. Later in his life he was confined to a wheelchair and was unable to stand and paint. He started to "draw with scissors", making beautiful collages with the help of assistants.

My students made their own collages combining their names with three or more objects that describe them using construction paper. When they were finished we mounted them on a colored background frame and then on black foam core. Thanks to incredibleart.org for the inspiring lesson plan - They turned out great!

Rousseau Collages are Fierce!

The latest project I did with my elementary school students was based on Henri Rousseau's jungle paintings. They learned all about how Rousseau was self-taught and made his paintings of jungles without ever having visited one, but through visiting zoos, botanical gardens, and using his imagination. They saw how he filled up his canvases with a lot of imagery:

For homework the students needed to bring in pictures of animals that they wanted to portray. They had to cut out shapes to make their animals and plants, and were instructed not to rely on drawing for any of the details (although some could just not help themselves!). Once the project was nearing its end I brought in shiny colored paper for them to add details. I think some of them turned out pretty great!

Middle and High School Students Work with Line

A while back, at the beginning of the semester, I wanted to focus on the element of Line with my HS and MS students. The assignment was to make a collage out of two colors using only lines. They were allowed to use any two colors they chose. Here are some of the best ones.

High School Student Ashley - she used 3 colors and I think it was a good choice!

High School Student Murat