Van Gogh-Inspired Tissue Paper Collage

In class, we each created a Van Gogh-inspired tissue collage landscape that would be a great art project for elementary students. We cut out small pieces of colored tissue paper and glued them to a piece of 12 X 18 construction paper. I chose to begin with a light blue sheet of construction paper and I glued brown, green, blue, red, orange, and yellow strips of tissue paper on top. We then covered the entire surface of the construction paper and tissue paper with a gel medium using a paintbrush. We allowed this to dry for about 15 minutes. The gel medium was used to give the background of the art a glossy texture.

 

Then we cut out a landscape out of a separate, different colored piece of construction paper. This could be a cityscape, mountains, jungle, etc. I decided to make a tropical scene, so I cut a palm tree landscape out of green construction paper. If I were to do this again, I probably would not include green or brown tissue paper in the background to create a greater contrast between the foreground and background.  Another idea would be to use warm colors as the background and a black or dark brown palm tree landscape for contrast.

 

We glued the landscape onto the background and used sharpie markers and oil pastels to create lines and swirls. The lines and swirls added movement, dimension, and interest, making the artwork complete.

This activity can open the door for learning in other subjects as well. As an extension activity, the students could write a story about the landscape they created.  I would provide a rubric for the students so they know what to include in the story. They could write about where the landscape is located, who is there, and what is happening there. This is a great activity to get children thinking creatively. It would also be interesting to have the children write a story about a classmate’s landscape. It would be best to make sure everyone ended up with two stories about his or her landscape so they could compare and contrast different viewpoints.

Emphasis Art: A Qualitative Art Program for Elementary and Middle Schools (2010) by Robert D. Clements and Frank Wachowiak gives some great ideas to approach art history through games and activities. One activity that I thought would be very effective and engaging for any elementary grade is to sort pictures or artwork by emotion (p. 250). This would help students to think deeply about the artwork and realize how it makes them feel.  I would then help the students to sort the images by time period. There may be some connection between time period and the mood the image conveys. This would help capture the students’ interest to learn more about history and why people felt the way they did during specific historical periods.