Collage Mosaics with Paper

It's hard not to be inspired by the artists that have conjured artworks that have lasted an age...

But when you are looking at the art peice in real life (St Peter's Basilica) and happen to wonder close to the candles, you realise, THIS IS A MOSIAC. Your husband casually says, 'Well that makes sense Taryn, mosaics would last longer than oil.' I'm sure I am not the only one that was awed by the shear talent to piece together such a large and detailed artwork with tiles.

And while I don't have the resources (yet) to do mosics with my students, I still want them to be inspired by the concept.

So....as a part of my mixed media unit, my grade 9 and 10 students have been experimenting with mosaic collage. The idea to to 'remind' and 'çhallenge' senior students to consider different ways of presenting artistic ideas. The workshop has only taken 3 lessons and the results are quite effective.

I didn't want students to get stuck on 'what' to create, my idea for this unit is to teach them technique to that ideas will come more fluently to them in later units/years. So...I printed several photos of random images with varying difficulty. Students selected photos like a lucky dip.

Obviously this student is not finished but I really liked her sensitivity to colour.

I heard recently that collage is for people who can't draw. I have to say that I am disgusted by that comment. Students need to have a keen eye for form not to mention into intricated gradients of colour to make a collage work.