Choose a painting or artwork which you would like to explore. 

This might be a painting in a local museum or gallery, a painting available online, or a painting from another era or culture which ties in with a curriculum area.

Here are some free to access ideas:

• Focus upon the Bayeux Tapestry

• Focus upon Egyptian Painting

• Focus upon an art work from Google Arts & Culture

Working in sketchbooks, use the “Show Me What You See” technique to help pupil’s visually explore your chosen artwork.

You can find a detailed explanation of the “Show Me What You See” resource here. 

During the exercise, draw the children’s attention to the visual elements of the artwork, including talking about shape, colour and composition. As well as using line in sketchbooks to describe shapes, also use colour (pastel, crayon, pens etc).

By the end of the session sketchbooks should be full of pupil’s interpretations of different elements (shapes, lines etc) from the paintings.

Visit the free to access “Talking Points: Henry Matisse Cut Outs” resource to introduce pupils to the idea of “painting with scissors”.

Use the free to access “Talking Points: Romare Bearden” resource to introduce pupils to the work of African American artist Romare Bearden who was influenced by patchwork quilts derived from African-American slave crafts and the work of Matisse. Bearden illustrated Homer’s Odyssey using collage.

Refer to the “Drawing With Scissors” resource to see how to explore a historic (or contemporary) painting through printing. (Using just the part of the resource about collaging with cut elements).

With the original artwork on the white board and sketchbook work from Show Me What You See, provide pupils with coloured paper (sugar or coloured paper, or even old paintings which can be cut up) and invite them to start cutting out shapes made in response to the original artwork. You may want to refer back to “Drawing With Scissors“ resource. 

You might like to split the class into groups – each taking a section of the original artwork, or you might like to give pupils more space to choose elements they particularly like. 

Don’t waste any paper – at the end of the session encourage pupils to keep the paper which has been cut away (you can sort it into sizes) as well as the positive “shapes”. 

“Envelopes” can be made/stuck in sketchbooks to keep paper elements safe until next week. 

You might like to see the “Positive and Negative Shapes” resource (to be done). 

Continue this work into week three.

Continue the process described in the “Drawing with Scissors” resource. Invite pupils to begin to lay down their cut elements to make collaged compositions, working on A3 or larger paper.

Encourage children to explore playfully before they decide where to stick shapes down on the page. Think about composition and meaning. Remember they are not trying to recreate the original artwork, instead they are making a creative response (which is personal) to the artwork.

Remind pupils they can use the pieces of paper which have had shapes cut out of them, and so introduce negative shapes into their work.

Continue into week four.

Continue the process described in the “Drawing with Scissors” resource.

Finalise first stage of collages ready for second part of the project. By this point all cut elements should be stuck down onto each pupil’s piece of paper.

Continue the process described in the “Drawing with Scissors” resource.

The final stage of the project is to add further detail to the artwork by working over the collaged elements. 

You can choose which method you want children to use from the 3 options below. Choose the option you think will best help pupils respond to the original artwork.

The aim of this final stage is to add further definition or clarity to the collaged composition, using a different medium to make the artwork feel more dimensional (collage can be quite a “flat” medium).

Revisit the original artwork and get pupils to look closely at the qualities of line the artists used.

Use the “Mono Printing with Carbon Paper” resource and use carbon paper to add line drawings over the top of the collaged sheets.

Remember the drawings do not have to line up with the exiting imagery. Layering imagery of different types will give exciting results.

Use the “Explore Stencils, Composition and Expressive Mark Making with Oil Pastels” resource and invite children to create masks and stencils out of card, thinking about negative and positive shapes. Use the masks and stencils over the original collaged artwork, using oil pastel as a medium.

Encourage the children to use a range of mark making and experiment with colour blending so that they get an understanding of the qualities of oil pastels.

If you are feeling more confident, you may want to give pupils the opportunity to explore simple screen printing as an alternative way to explore masks and stencils. See our “Talking Points: Screenprint“

Give children the opportunity to try out screen printing with this “Simple Screen Print Hack“. Watch all 3 videos before starting.

Ask children to prepare their stencils and masks prior to printing. Remember that they will need stencils and masks of every element including clothing, face detail or any big shapes within the background. 

As with Option 1 and 2, be inventive about the shapes which are overlaid over the collaged elements – remember the shapes do not have to line up with the collaged composition – exciting and surprising outcomes can be achieved by creating new shapes and lines over the first collage. 

Time to see the work which has been made, talk about intention and outcome.

Invite pupils to display the work in a clear space, and walk around the work as if they are in a gallery. Give the work the respect it deserves. Remind the children of their handwork.

If you have class cameras or tablets, invite the children to document their work, working in pairs or teams.

Use the resource here to help you run a class “crit” to finish the project. 

Claire Willberg repurposes the paper that she uses in her printing process to create visually exciting animations. See her animations in “Talking Points: Claire Willberg“.

Get your children to keep their stencils and masks once they’ve been used and make a stop motion.

See the “Animation Software” resource for support.