Mosaic Landscapes

Very intricate, very laborious but very rewarding art. They are (painted) paper mosaic landscapes courtesy of year 5 and 6. Most of the scenes depicted are directly inspired by landscape photographs, some are a fusion of different photos and a few are entirely imagined. Islands and icebergs, mountains and rivers, rocks, roads, oceans, jetties and sunsets—there's a great variety of scenery, and as with all good landscape art, it's very easy to stop and stare at these beautiful natural environments. 

The first and probably most enjoyable part of the process was painting all the paper. We gathered a tonne of scrap paper (just regular old copy paper) and went a bit wild with the paint, making numerous colour mixes, tints and shades. The unprinted side of each A4 sheet was quickly painted one colour, then the mix was tweaked (darker or lighter or greener etc) and another full sheet was painted. And so the process continued until virtually every flat surface in the room was covered in dozens and dozens of differently coloured pieces of drying paper. Once dry, the paper was flattened underneath a pile of atlases (proving that a printed map is still more useful than a GPS!). The speed of the painting also left lots of visible brushstrokes, which made for a very textural look on the mosaics.

The students then made planning sketches based on a series of landscape photos that I showed them. I had a quick conference with each student and made sure that they had a strong composition that was distilled down to the basic shapes and free of overly intricate details (e.g. just foreground, mountain, sky etc). They also wrote down the colours they intended to use in each area. 

Next they very lightly drew in some guide lines on their good piece of art paper. Finally they began the laborious task of blocking in each segment of their landscape by cutting and pasting down pieces of the paper we had painted previously. As well as deciding exactly where to place all those great colours, other goals included gluing each piece of paper so it didn't touch its neighbour, and also to rub out the pencil guides before they were immortalised in glue!

This cutting and pasting part of the process was quite taxing on their patience and admittedly the enthusiasm had waned for a few students towards the end... Hopefully it was patience-promoting rather than patience-demanding. It took around 5 weeks to complete and made for a fantastic class display at their school art show. Well done any 5/6 students who are reading this : ) I think that may be the first time I've used the word fantastic on this blog! 

Abstract Mosaic Collage II

These eye-catching collages were created by a recent year 5 class. I first trialled this lesson last year with year 2. I've been really pleased with the results both times. As a relief teacher it's great to have ready-to-go lessons that work well across multiple age groups (and are even more engaging than colouring-in stencils!). You can see the original year 2 results and read more about the lesson process here.

I was really impressed with some of these colour combinations and especially with the student on the very top left who opted to use only blue and black while most used their full "allowance" of four colours!

If you're too stretched for time to visit my previous post and instructions, here's a short overview : ) Students choose between 1 and 4 colours, then free-cut and paste pieces of these coloured papers down, covering the white paper without the pieces touching each other.

Abstract Mosaic Collage

Collage and/or Mosaic. I'm not sure if these artworks are the result of one or the other, or both? Your learned opinions are always welcome!

This year 2 class was asked to choose 3 coloured papers to free-cut various shapes from (no pre-drawing or planning). Each piece was glued down immediately, ideally starting at one corner or end and working their way across the paper sticking more pieces side by side. The goal was that each piece would not be touching another.

The children were encouraged to make deliberate decisions about what colour should go next to another. The process of cutting and sticking one piece at a time also helped them to consider what new shape would compliment the existing shapes. The art was intended to be non representational, but also not be a repetitive or obvious pattern. Of course with their vivid imaginations they still managed to see all kinds of interesting things!

So my rules/suggestions/guidelines weren't always adhered to, but I didn't really remind them too much. Some students only ever need to hear something once, others may never hear! Some students wanted more colours which was fine and one or two ended up pre-drawing some of their shapes which was fine too. As with all abstract art, these won't be everyone's ‘cup of tea’, but both the students and myself were really happy with the results — mission accomplished.