Kindergarten Students Explore Cut-and-Torn Collage Technique

After spending time exploring line and learning about the artist pencil in the fall—thick and thin, changing pressure to create light and dark, direction, and type (straight, curvy, zig-zag, looped, and more)—Kindergarten artists later launched their unit on shape with direction from Lower School visual art teacher Sonya Derman. They first decorated their sketchbooks freely with pre-cut paper strips and shapes, then moved into a more formal investigation of shape through collage.

The young artists first learned to change paper by ripping and tearing—not only turning paper into smaller shapes, but designing and controlling the rough-edged shapes they made by working slowly and turning the paper as they ripped. The students practiced ripping different sizes and using different gluing techniques, using "just enough" and smoothing down pieces onto their page. They even dabbled in one of the more risky lessons in this unit, how to hold scissors and use them safely. 

As they glued their pieces down, students considered the different possibilities for arranging their shapes on the page—crowding shapes together, spreading them out, putting them on the sides or corners, and creating multiple layers. Students also found ways to create new shapes by combining and overlapping smaller shapes of the same color. Using a limited color palette of black and white, they focused on the core of the lesson—shape, size, edge, and overlap. We are so proud of our Kindergarten artists for their work on these collages, which were recently displayed!