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!

The Tin Man's heart

Cinderella's Castle (6th Grade!)



Detail of 'Cinderella's Castle'




Alice in Wonderland



The Lion King



Willy Wonka (Johnny Depp version of course...ugh)




Detail of 'Willy Wonka'

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Positive Negative Torn Paper Plants

For this project, I asked the students to go out and photograph trees and plants. I stressed the importance of framing the leaves against a blank background (like the sky or a blank wall) so that they could really tell the difference between the positive and negative space. We then tweaked them in Picasa and printed them out as high contrast black and white photos.

Working from the photo of their choice, the students drew the outline of their plants/leaves. They then had to tear black paper into tiny pieces and glue it down to fill in the positive space that makes up their plant. Next, they printed out a few pieces of patterned paper that they then tore to fill in the negative space/background.

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