Create Your Own Picasso Painted Collage

Pablo Picasso’s art spanned many styles as he grew as an artist. I have posted about Picasso before and recommended that you try your hand at a music collage in his style. At the beginning of the summer I went to an art exhibit that had one of Picasso’s painted collages. Today’s project was inspired by that painting.

Note: My aunt created the jazzy painting with the brown background, and I painted the picture of the dog walker with the blue background. We used a lot of small pieces because we wanted to have fun with the project, but you can use as few or as many shapes of any size. It would be interesting to create a collage painting using only circles, squares, rectangles, and triangles. You would really start to notice the way objects are just made up of shapes stuck together.

You will need two sessions to complete this project.

Supplies Needed:

Poster board shape tracers
Pencil
Foam board or heavy paper in the color of your background
Craft paint
Paintbrush
Water

The fun thing about this project is that two people will use the same shapes to create completely different paintings. My aunt and I both wanted to use all the shapes available so we could show this to you. You can pick which shapes you want to include in your painting and which you want to leave out.
Choose a sheet of paper or a piece of foam board in the color you’d like your background to be. You could also paint a solid color over the entire paper. Trust me; it’s a pain to paint the background after you’ve traced your image onto your paper. If you decide to paint your background, remember to let it dry before you go on.

Arrange the tracers into a picture on your paper. Move them around until you create an image you like. This seems like it would be difficult, but the shapes will form into pictures if you move them around enough. Remember, the color of the tracers doesn’t matter because you’re going to paint later.
When you’re happy with the layout, trace each shape with your pencil. This is the trickiest part of this project because the shapes can move if you aren’t careful. Take your time.
This is a good place to take a break if you need one.

The final step is to paint. At this point, you’re basically filling in a coloring book page. It’s much more satisfying, though, because you drew the outline yourself.

Allow your painting to dry and then compare it to the paintings your friends made using the same group of shape tracers. What similarities and differences do you notice?

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Create Your Own Rousseau Jungle

As you read yesterday, Henri Rousseau most liked to paint jungle scenes even though he had never been to a jungle or seen most of the animals up close. Rousseau’s jungles are highly regarded today. You can make your own jungle scene just like Rousseau, regardless of whether you’ve seen a jungle yourself.

Supplies Needed:

Construction paper in green and blue
Magazines (such as landscaping, bird watching, and travel magazines)
Glue stick
Scissors

Gather your materials. Flip through your magazines and cut out pictures of trees, plants, and animals that you think you might find in a jungle. Be sure to get permission before you cut any magazines. Look at some of Rousseau’s paintings, like the ones in this large Rousseau gallery, for inspiration.

Tear a strip of green construction paper to create grass for your jungle. Glue it to the bottom of the blue sheet of paper (the sky).

Arrange your cut out trees and foliage, then add your animals. When you have created a jungle scene of your liking, glue down the magazine cutouts.

If you prefer to create a jungle that doesn’t require any materials, make your own Rousseau jungle online at the National Gallery of Art Kids page. Please note that you will need Adobe Shockwave Player to create an online jungle. It is a quick download but again, get permission before you download anything.



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Create Your Own Picasso-Inspired Collage

The great thing about creating art is that you never have to show it to anyone if you don’t like the way it turns out. Thus, I am not posting a photo of my collage. I hope you have better luck with your Picasso-inspired musical collages.

Supplies Needed:

Poster board
Colored papers
Sheet music
Newspaper
Paints
White glue
Water
Paintbrush

Cut shapes from your colored papers. You could cut pieces of musical instruments in any colors you’d like or cut music notes. Cut out pieces from your sheet music (do a search for sheet music and print something out if you don’t have any music you can cut up) and use words from newspaper headlines if you want your collage to say something.

Choose what kind of paper you want to use for your background. Picasso often used wallpaper but wrapping paper will work well also. If you don’t have either, tear up pieces of construction paper to make your own background.

Mix a little glue with water to thin it. This will make your paper turn out less wrinkled after you glue it down.

Brush on enough glue to hold the background. Stick it to the poster board. Arrange your collage pieces on top of the background and, when you like the way the collage looks, glue down all the pieces.

You can add paint to your collage, too. Maybe you want to accentuate some of the notes in your sheet music with red paint. Or you could add guitar strings. Use your imagination.

Good luck!

Click here for a Matisse-inspired collage project.

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Picasso's musical collages

Thank you to all who commented on my noveling adventure. Your support really means a lot. Now that's recovered a bit I can post properly again.

Picasso was born in 1881 in Spain. Picasso’s father was a painter and sculptor and began Picasso’s art education at an early age. Picasso lived in Paris for much of his life where he lived passionately until his death in 1973. His art grew and changed throughout his life and he was key in forming several important artistic movements. I could and will write posts on each of Picasso’s “periods,” as they are called.

Music influenced many of Picasso’s pieces, including his collages. Today’s post will be on these musical collages.

Picasso used wallpaper, cloth, and sheet music in his musical collages as well as paint. He used wallpaper most often to create the background and then cut the sheet music, cloth, paper scraps, and newspaper into the shape of guitars or pieces of guitars. Then he combined the shapes on the collage to represent a guitar.

Look at the collages shown below and think about what you might want to use in your own collage. Tomorrow I’ll post a Picasso inspired collage project.

Glass of Vieux Marc, Glass, Guitar, and Newspaper:

Guitar, Sheet Music, and Wine Glass:

Guitar and Sheet Music:

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Create Your Own Matisse Collage

Yesterday you read about Henri Matisse who created large, bold collages late in his life. Today, make your own collage in the style of Matisse.

Supplies Needed:

Acrylic Craft Paints
Poster board
Thick/textured sketch paper
White glue
Plastic Cups
Paintbrush
Scissors

Look around your house or outside and choose a subject. For example, a pine tree. Choose what colors you’d like to use in your collage. Remember, the colors you choose don’t have to be the natural colors of your subject. You might choose to create a pine tree in warm tones: red, orange, yellow, magenta. Or you might use all the colors of the rainbow to create orange slices. You can even use one color for the whole collage like the one by Matisse shown above, Blue Nude. Go crazy. Be creative. This is what art is all about.

When you’ve chosen your colors, paint one sheet of sketch paper in each color. If you’re using all one color, you’ll need to paint a few sheets to have enough material to make your collage.

Let the paint dry.

Cut your sheets of painted paper into shapes. If I were making a pine tree I might use triangles as branches or long rectangles placed at angle and overlapping in the center. Lay your shapes in the desired pattern on the poster board.

Mix some glue with a little water in your plastic cup. Use a paintbrush to apply the glue to the back of each shape and attach your pattern to the poster board. Paint a layer of glue over the top of the collage as well. This will seal the shapes and give the whole collage a smooth finish.

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My Current NaNoWriMo Word Count:

45336 / 50000 words. 91% done!

I’m struggling to write those last few thousand words.

Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse, born in 1869, began his working life doing administrative tasks for a court. As a gift, his mother gave him his first art supplies and he fell in love with painting.

He studied art in Paris where he painted mostly landscapes and still lifes. He was successful at this and the state even bought five of his paintings. In 1898, he discovered impressionism. A friend and fellow painter, John Peter Russell introduced him to the work of the impressionists including van Gogh who was still unknown and Gauguin. Matisse’s style changed completely following this discovery and color took center-stage in his paintings.

This love of color evolved into Fauvism, in which natural scenes are portrayed in unnatural, usually extremely bright, colors.

By the end of his life Matisse was thoroughly interested in patterns and from this interest came his collages. Made from boldly hand-painted paper cut into shapes, Matisse’s collages were usually large works of simplicity. He create a book, Jazz, illustrated with these collages.

Shown below are two paintings by Matisse, Two Figures Reclining in a Landscape and The Red Madrass Headress. Notice the difference in style and color use.

EDITED TO ADD: Create Your Own Matisse Collage

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NaNoWriMo Word Count:

41902 / 50000 words. 84% done!
Yes: still behind but...
I FINISHED MY NOVEL!!!!!!

Collages

You have probably made a collage before by cutting out magazine pictures and gluing them to another sheet of paper to create a new picture or pattern. Many artists have also used this technique in their paintings. These artists include Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, who I’ll post articles and projects on during the next two weeks.

Picasso was the first to use collage in painting. In 1912 he glued a piece of cloth with a chair caning pattern, the woven part of the seat, to his painting Still Life with Chair Caning (shown below). This allowed him to use 3D to portray the things he saw.

For Matisse, collages were a way he could continue to create art when he fell sick late in his life. He hand-painted pieces of white paper with bold, solid colors and arranged them into pictures. The collages, such as Iccarus shown below, were then used in his book, Jazz.

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Current NaNoWriMo Word Count:

40552 / 50000 words. 81% done!
It’s the final countdown! Just 5 more days.