Children's Art Activities - Bryan Collier
Read his biography
"3D Collage"
Based on Uptown
Materials:
Dark construction paper, construction paper crayons, pages from a magazine, any other material you want to use in your collage, glue, scissors, and gloss medium (optional)
Instructions:
“Collage” is derived from the French word, “coller” meaning to paste. A collage is made by cutting and layering paper (and sometimes other materials, like fabric, metal, wood, or plaster) to create a piece of art that looks so real you want to touch it! You can use any type of material that inspires you—magazine cut-outs, other papers, ribbon, fabric, leaves, even pipe cleaners. Use your imagination!
Draw an abstract design on construction paper with construction paper crayons. Keep this until later. Fold the magazine page in half (lengthwise). Fold the 2 outer edges of the length of the paper toward the middle fold. While the page is folded, cut abstract designs through the middle fold and edges of the magazine page. Be careful to not cut all the way through the paper! Keep the shaped pieces of paper you just cut for later decoration. Place the magazine page anywhere on your decorated construction paper with the middle fold sticking up. Glue the outer edges down to create a “pop-up” appearance. Glue the leftover magazine cutouts to other areas of the construction paper. You can add interest by imagining a city street. What would you see—buildings, cars, roads, trees, people? It may help to think of a city you have lived in or visited. You may also want to look at a book or photographs for ideas. Using scissors and colored construction paper, cut out shapes for all the things you want to include in your picture. Pick a large sheet of paper to be your background. Arrange your shapes onto the background page, starting with the things that are farthest away and ending with the things closest to you. Glue your shapes down in the same order. Use crayons to decorate your city. You can include the name of your city with crayons or cutout paper letters. To give your collage a glossy look, a gloss medium works both as glue and as a sealant. For this project it is best to use regular glue for the collage and then apply a thin layer of the gloss medium on top to seal it in. This is best applied with a paintbrush, but you can also use other materials such as craft sticks or a Q-tip.
*Please remember that you need to wash out your paintbrush with soap and water after using the gloss medium so it doesn’t ruin the brush.
