Starry Night Tissue Paper Collage

Final product!

This collage was inspired by Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night. Van Gogh was known for his abstract work using line, movement, color, and other elements and principles of design. We were assigned to create our own Van Gogh type collage using tissue paper. The directions were to take a 12x18 sheet of construction paper and add as much or as little tissue paper, however we wanted, to represent Van Gogh’s Starry Night. We then painted a gel medium on top to make the glossy look. Once it dried we had to add a landscape to it. I decided to do a wire fence to make it look like a field and stream behind the fence.  I used brown construction paper to make the fence posts, black pipe cleaners to represent the wire, twisted pipe cleaners to represent the barbed wire, and I had a cowgirl leaning against one of the fence posts. I also used my black oil pastel to rub a darker sky in the background. I then drew different lines and swirls using a sharpie and oil pastel to show movement like you see in Starry Night. 

Picture of the gel medium, tissue paper, and rubbed oil pastel background. 

Close up of the tissue paper, gel medium, and oil pastel background. 

Picture of the collage with the landscape added...not quite finished!

In the world of an Elementary education or Special education teacher, the two words, art criticism, can be very scary. Art criticism is the term used when writing and thinking about artworks. In Chapter 22. it discussed art criticism and stated that even if the teacher knows only a little about a piece of art, such as who made it, its medium, where or when it was made, student's can still learn as long as an attitude of questioning prevails. Three questions that could get a students mind rolling are: 1. What is it?, 2. What does it mean?. 3. What it its value?

An extension activity that can be used for criticizing art is to play an observing game. One student will face away from the rest of the class and have to describe the piece of art they are looking at. The rest of the class will close their eyes and imagine what the student is saying. They can either just think about it or draw it out. After a few minutes turn the piece of art around and see how different each students envisioned what they were told. 

Elements and Principles of Art.

This piece of artwork found in my roommates room shows radial balance because the design starts in the center and moves out. 

This bulletin board border is a great example of color because there are so many different  hues. 

This shower curtain shows a random pattern of circles. 

This wall in the Barnett Center shows texture. 

Footprint Project

For this activity, have the students trace their foot or shoe onto construction paper. Next give them all types of media; crayons, markers, paper, magazines, paint, ribbon, pictures, etc., to tell a story about their life. Explain to the students that the point is to use this to tell a story about themselves. On my foot I have nail polish because I love painting my nails; I made the  biggest bottle of nail polish purple because that is my favorite color. I also included post-it notes because I have many different types and colors and use them all the time. On each post-it note is one of my favorite quotes because quotes mean a lot to me. I find new ones all the time and really use them as motivation. The picture is of my cousin Danny who inspires me every day in many different ways. I also included part of a Dr. Pepper Label because it is my favorite drink.

There are many extension activities that could go along with this project. You could have the children do a footprint for each person in their family and introduce themselves that way. You could also give the student a character in a book or a famous person in history and have them create a footprint of what that person's life was or is like. Another way would be to compare the students interests and make a bar graph to show the class how similar everyone really is.