art teach art: Kinder"Garden" Collages

Just before we left for quarantine, kindergarteners spent a couple of months focusing on gardens in art. In preparation for our auction artworks that would have been available at the Spring Benefit (if we had stayed in school we could've completed them), the children had been drawing, printing, and collaging fruits, veggies, and flowers - expanding on the kindergarten theme of "KinderGarden" that year in their homeroom classes.

Our first step was to draw one object from a garden. Mrs. Adam's class focused on fruits and veggies, and Mrs. Hammill's class focused on flowers. The children chose from a table of photographs of the available objects and sat down to draw onto a sheet of stryofoam.

Next, they used their printmaking skills which they have been working on during several projects this year to make multiple prints of their drawing. They used both plain white paper and patterned and colorful scrapbook paper and a variety of ink colors to do as many prints as they could.

Next, we studied the collage artwork of Robert Rauschenberg - one of my favorite artists. I have always been drawn to the spontaneity and playfulness in his work.

Next, they chose two prints to use in a collage artwork.

After they glued on their prints, they spent the first week using a variety of cut paper "stations" with which to cover their background paper. There were 3 stations to choose from the first week: 1. decorative papers, 2. magazine papers, and 3. colored papers with wacky scissors and circle/oval hole punches.

Here are a couple of artworks in progress during the first week:

The second week the idea was to add elements to their collages by visiting more stations in the art room as their interests and pace guided them. There were 6 stations they could visit: 1. decorative papers, 2. paint sticks, 3. stickers and paint pens, 4. letter stamps, 5. tissue paper shapes, and 6. stencils and paint.