Monster faces and other collage explorations

above: "silly face" collage explorations by PK-130

above: collage explorations of "a place that's special to me" by 2-204

above: "silly faces" by PK-132

above: monster faces and a street scene (far right) by 5-346

above: monster faces by 1-222

above: monster faces and abstract collages by 4-214

above: monster faces and abstract collages by 2-230

above: Monster face collage explorations by 3-232 and 2-236

All classes contributed to the creation of hand painted paper to be used in collages throughout the year. Inspired by the illustrations of Eric Carle, which are collages created out of hand painted paper, students began to use the hand painted paper to explore the techniques and expressive possibilities of collage. The huge variety of colors and textures of the hand painted paper allows students to make matches between the visual and tactile qualities of the paper and what it is they are trying to represent. Also, the visual qualities (color, texture, etc.) of the paper remind students of other things, inspiring new ideas for their creation. 

above: collage explorations by K/1-116

Children go through phases of artistic development and these phases are necessary and should not be rushed. First is the pre-representational phase, followed by the emerging representational phase. Some children stay in the pre-representational phase until about age five while some may enter the emerging representational phase around age 3. All children are different and how early they explore a certain phase has nothing to do with their creativity or artistic ability. A full exploration of each phase ensures a richer creative development. Above we see a combination of pre-representational and emerging representational collages by students in K/1-116. Of course many of these students are in transition between the first two phases. Pre-representational art-making is primarily concerned with exploring the possibilities of materials. In emerging representational artwork we see children's motivation and attempts to represent their experiences with the world visually. 

above: examples of pre-representational collages by K-108.