ArtRoominations {musings from the art room...and more}: Once Upon A Time...

Recently, I asked my middle school classes to choose a scene from a classic fairy tale or book that they wanted to illustrate in a torn paper collage. I first showed them a little slideshow on the history of collage, touching on its roots with Picasso and Braque. Then, I provided them with a long list of stories that I thought might have great scenes to illustrate. The funny thing though with kids in middle school right now is that many of them consider Sponge Bob a classic childrens book... sooo I had to do a little bit of steering in the right direction, but most of them picked up on what I was trying to get them to do. They researched their chosen story and chose a few pictures to work from, selecting certain elements from each to create the perfect scene. Once their pictures were sketched out, they then began the INCREDIBLY long and tedious task of ripping and cutting small pieces from magazines that they collaged in a mosaic fashion to fill in the colors of their images. Did i mention that this took an incredibly long time??!! I would recommend having them use much smaller paper than I did (most of my kids did theirs at around 16"x20"), and perhaps allowing them to work on this project alongside another one so that they can have a break from time to time. The fact that I only see my middle school classes a few days a week was also a hinderance to their progress, so if you meet with yours everyday, you might have better luck with the production time. As always though, the middle school kids continue to surprise me with their work ethic, skill, and creativity!