Art Explorers - Matisse Collages

 The goal of this program was to not only promote the famous artist who made awesome collages in his older years, but also to help me with the all the construction paper scraps from my old storytimes.

PROGRAM BASICS

• For children ages 6 through 12 yrs
• Must register prior to program due to limited space. If space allows, children can walk in day off. 
• 1 hour in length

THEME 
Matisse Collages

PROJECT EXAMPLE 

Do you see any animals in the lower green collage?
I made the purple deer by pure luck.
So I decided to add in more.

INTRODUCTION 
What's awesome is there is a LOT of books about Henri Matisse that range from artist biographies to educational picture books: Matisse's Garden by Samantha Friedman, Blue & Other Colors with Henri Matisse, Matisse: The King of Color by Laurence Anholt, and Colorful Dreamer: The Story of Artist Henri Matisse by Marjorie Blain Parker. I shared info with the children about he was a great painter, but after he had fallen ill he started to cut out painted paper to make large collages.

HOW TO MAKE IT?
Supplies 

• Construction paper - both new sheets and scraps 
• Scissors 
• Glue sticks 

 It's very basic. Pick out a base, which is a new sheet of construction paper. Then use the paper scraps to cut out random shapes. A lot of Matisse's shapes were not completely representational so I tried my best to make everything not represent anything exactly, but it just so happened I cut out a shape that that looked like a perfect deer head. So I added in other animals to help give an example to the children that they can add in some things. Matisse did make an apple shape, which always looked like a radish to me.

HOW DID IT GO?
Attendance: 8 children, 5 adults
This was a good program. It was small in attendance, but not my worst. Some children did have difficulty listening to me about using the paper scraps instead of new paper. Also, these children did had some trouble understanding that we were making collages and not giant paper crafts that look like Spongebob or a flag. The lesson here is to just go with it and try to encourage them, but if they don't do it right then just leave them to their work (especially if their parent is in the room). All the other children in the group did a great job working on their work of art, and were proud of their results. Initially I was worried I didn't have enough scraps, but because of the group size I had the perfect amount.