A collage is an artistic arrangement of various materials glued to a flat surface. Here are some pointers and ideas for kids and teachers.
Collage making is an art project that almost everyone can succeed at. Collages are pictures made by combining words and images in an unusual arrangement to convey emotion. This is what makes it art. “Art” differs from “drawing” in that it expresses some emotion. It makes the person who sees it feel sad, happy, angry, wistful, lonesome, happy, etc.
Hodgepodge is another word that describes the collage style of art. Melange is a mixture of incongruous elements. The dictionary defines a collage as an artistic composition made of various materials glued to a flat surface.Collage is pronounced co-lazh, with the accent on the first syllable, a long "o" sound and the "a" sounds like "ah." The "ge" make a "zh" sound. Collage comes from a French word "colle" meaning glue.
Supplies Needed for Making a Collage
- ideas
- cardboard or sturdy art paper
- scissors
- glue
- selected collage materials
Whatever style you choose for your collage, you will have to make choices of the types of materials to be arranged and then glued into place.
Collages Can Have a Seasonal Theme
For example, choose trees. Draw a tree trunk and branches for your tree. Now choose pink paper, tissue paper, snippets of pink cloth, bits of pink plastic, pressed foam, or any material that you want to choose. Cut, tear or break the pink material into bits. Then glue these to the tree branches. You might want to glue bits of brown paper, string, fibers, or tree bark to the drawn tree trunk. You have made a tree for spring full of cherry or peach blossoms.
For summer, draw the tree trunk and make leaves by gluing on green things; choose odd things not actual leaves because they will dry out and curl up or crack. Use chopped up green play money, (Money does grow on trees?), try using green cloth, green candy wrappers, newsprint, printed green scrapbooking paper, green frog stickers, green stickers or stamps, or any green things.
For autumn, draw the tree and add multicolored items, bright fall colors of cloth and paper, gum wrappers, egg shells, pressed wildflowers, snips from magazine pictures, or red, orange and yellow things.
For winter, draw the tree trunk and branches; add white egg shell, white buttons, feathers, papers, bits of white Kleenex, or tiny white sea shells, white pebble, pieces of cloth or plastic.
Instead of trees, you might choose flowers or houses (or any topic–see list below) and color it with your glued on materials.
Twist on Color
To add interest use the wrong colors for the items portrayed. Make a dog bright pink instead of brown or black. Color flowers green and their stems red, yellow and pink. Change things up.
Make your whole collage all shades of one color, say blue, and several different shades of blue. This is called monochromatic. Picture a blue tree with baby blue bark and dark blue leaves and cobalt blue twigs.
Use colors that are complimentary to the natural color.
Topics:
- shoes
- clothes
- hats
- flags
- tools
- flowers
- colors
- boxes
- animals
- birds
- chairs
- flashlights
- fish
- names
- numbers
- pencils
- cars
- balloons
- articles that pertain to a particular sport
- books
- places in a city
- buildings
- bridges
- coins
- stamps
- election stuff
Creating Mood and Emotion with Collage
Remember, your collage does not necessarily have to have a theme or a topic. Collages are art and art produces emotion. Combine different items in such a way as to create a feeling—all sad things, all cheerful bright things, soft things, nature findings.
Use objects with colors, textures, and shapes that create that emotion. Dark things make a scary or dismal emotion. Cold things and cool colors produce a cold feel. Romantic emotions are produced with soft, frilly, or flowered things, pink, red, and white touches, etc. Create the mood in your audience that you want to show—anger, pity, distress, cheerful, sweet, warm, fearful, gloomy, triumphant, etc.
Have fun with this art medium.
