Eric Carle – Inspired Tissue Paper Collage
Materials:
- Examples of finished projects
- One or two Eric Carle books for reference OR use video link below
- Color Wheel
- Tracing guides of two types of fish
- Heavy white paper (1 per student)
- Pencil (1 per student)
- Tissue paper squares: warm colors and cool colors (keep separated)
- Watered down glue (combine 2/3 Elmer’s glue with 1/3 water)
- Paint brush (1 per student)
- Scissors (1 per student)
- Larger sheet of construction paper for mounting
- A couple glue sticks for mounting
- Optional: construction paper for making eyes for the fish
Set Up:
- Each student receives a piece of heavy white paper, pencil, paint brush and scissors
- Each table shares the following: pile of warm color tissue papers; pile of cool color tissue papers; dish of watered-down glue, tracing patterns of each type of fish
- Set colored construction paper and glue sticks at separate table for mounting
Class Time:
PRE-ACTIVITY:
http://www.eric-carle.com/slideshow_collage.html
- Begin your lesson with a short discussion about color and introduce the art of Eric Carle (show The Hungry Caterpillar).
- Demonstrate the technique of the tissue paper collage. Show how to paint down the glue, overlap the tissue papers, paint glue over the top of the papers, and how the papers should overlap the pencil outline (they’ll cut on the line at the end to make their shape)
START:
- Instruct each student to trace one of the fish shapes on the center of their white paper.
- Each student should choose EITHER warm color tissue papers or cool colors. This will create a nice variety of projects and illustrate the concept of warm and cool colors.
- Students should paint glue in a small area of their project, then overlap tissue papers on the glue to make a collage.
- Next, paint a light layer of glue over the top of the tissue papers to make them transparent.
- Then, move on to a new area; paint more glue and cover with more tissue papers, until the fish design is covered (the tissue papers should overlap the pencil line they drew).
- Have students clean up their space while the project dries a little
- Instruct students to cut out their fish shape and bring to front to mount on colored paper. NOTE: if they use a warm color, mount to cool colored background and vice versa.
If there’s time, they can glue construction paper eyes onto their fish, or color with marker.
About this activity: (PLEASE READ TO STUDENTS)
Eric Carle is an artist who used brightly colored tissue papers to create illustrations for his books, including The Very Hungry Caterpillar, The Mixed Up Chameleon, The Grouchy Ladybug, and many more.
• First, he hand-painted tissue paper like those we’ll use in this activity.
• Next, he drew a shape on a piece of paper.
Step 2: Drawing the Shapes
• Then, he glued the tissue papers to the paper.
Step 3: Glue the tissue papers to the paper
• Last, he cut out the shapes and pasted them to a new paper to make a picture.
Step 4: Cut out the shapes
The activity that we are doing today was inspired by Eric Carle’s illustrations. You’ll be making a tissue paper collage, then cutting out a fish shape. You can choose either of the fish shapes, but use only cool OR warm colors for your project. Notice the new colors you create when you overlap different colors of tissue paper.
