Rosalie Gascoigne Inspired Collage

A talented and patient year 3 class are responsible for these great collages. They are inspired by Rosalie Gascoigne's Tiger Tiger. I first tried this lesson with a combined year 5 and 6 class last year. Both times the students and myself have been really happy with the results. There's quite a bit of work involved and there are some very thoughtful responses from these young artists. You can read more about the process involved and see the work of the 5/6 class on this previous post.

I like the variety of themes the students have chosen, from single and varied colours, to typography, people, transport, hairstyles and more. I commented to one young student that I really liked his collection of colours to which he replied "it's not a colour collection, they're all different dress fabrics..." I was even more impressed! Some might find it a little creepy, but I was also really impressed with the student who amassed a collage of different skin tones. As I mentioned the students were very patient, mostly I think students of all ages like fairly fast paced art lessons but this process is fiddly and laborious. Year 3 is definitely the youngest I'll repeat this lesson with : )

Gascoigne Inspired Collages

A little while back I made the trek down to Sydney and visited the newly renovated MCA. It was a great day out and I felt inspired to take some of what I was seeing back to the classroom. One of the pieces that really appealed to me was Rosalie Gascoigne's Tiger Tiger. It's an arresting collage of recycled yellow roadwork signs.

I regaled this 5/6 class with the tale of my big adventure to the city and the art gallery before showing them Tiger Tiger on the smartboard. Our main point of discussion was whether or not Rosalie deliberately ordered and orientated the squares and why. We also briefly discussed the fact that it's great to see art that uses recycled materials. And that was more than enough discussion; it was time to get hands-on!

I gave the students small squares of thick card that I had pre-cut. Their task was to flick through magazines tracing their square onto desired images, letters, colours etc. These squares were then cut out of the magazines until the students had enough to make their own matrix (these ones were 7 by 7 squares). They were encouraged to choose a theme or muse for their collage. We ended up with a variety including colours, people, pets, facial features, sport, food, fabric, furniture, footwear, typography and logos. 

The students then glued their squares together, many making deliberate choices about which square went where. The class really took to this process. It was time consuming though, which can be a good thing of course — it's nice for the students to experience something that isn't instantaneous once in a while! The initial lesson went for a full hour and it was a little over a full week before all the students had completed their collages using in-between and finishing time in class — after which some students immediately embarked upon a second one.