I Love to Collage!

Mid January and there's still at least two more months of winter to get through. How to pass those interminably long snow-bound days cooped up with little ones? Why not try collage? Clear an area, gather a bunch of easy-to-find supplies, and you're set. And if you have a copy of I Love to Collage! by Jennifer Lipsey, so much the better.

This book provides instructions for 20 projects that will turn any child into a budding Matisse. Start with a simple one to get a child's artistic juices flowing. "Torn Animals," the first project in the book, uses just a few supplies (colored paper, markers, and glue) to create appealing collages of animals. "Circle Birds" and "Sand & Sails" are other projects that are easy and fun to make.

Some of the projects I liked best incorporated photographs, either from magazines or photocopies from the family photo album. "Create a Face" lets kids make silly portraits using a jumble of eyes, noses, and mouths cut from magazines. "Picture This" invites kids to use collages to frame photographs. For instance, a child who dreams of being on TV can see how she'll look after gluing a cut-out TV shape onto a photo of her smiling face.  And with "Furry Folks" a child's inner Doctor Moreau can shine, as they combine images of animals and people into otherworldly creatures. Astro-cat anyone?

Collages don't have to be made from paper. Lipsey provides an extensive list of all the different kinds of materials that can be used. In short, if it can be glued down, it's collage material. "Garbage Art" utilizes trash to make appealing collages, such as a horse concocted from cardboard tubes, newspaper, and bubble wrap. It's not hard to find supplies for "Nature Art," just step outside. Shells, feathers, tree bark, sand, and even plain old dirt can be brought inside and transformed into art. Kids can try their hand at making a stick person or a shell butterfly or a feather flower.

By the time a child has worked her way through all the projects included in this book, winter will be a distant memory. So on a rainy spring day, look up the other titles in this series, including I Love to Draw!, I Love to Paint!, and I Love to Draw Cartoons! among others. A whole year's worth of art projects!

If you would like to get started right away, here is an easy landscape collage from Art Project's for Kids. Try it with an outdated telephone directory.

I Love to Collage!
by Jennifer Lipsey
Lark Books, 48 pages
Published: 2006

This week's Nonfiction Monday is being held at NC Teacher Stuff.