recycled magazine collages

student completed collage.

Teaching landscapes is probably one of my favorite subjects to introduce to my younger students.  After they see what a foreground, middle ground, and background does to create depth they feel so accomplished - like they should be.  For this lesson, Collage Landscapes, I wanted to share how my 5th grade class used the colors and size of cut up magazines to create these very abstract and vibrant landscapes.

Step One - Students brainstormed on what type of landscape they wanted to depict.  I had students list the types of colors associated with their landscape.  This was a tricky part, make sure students understand that these will not look realistic - just the color will be showing their landscape.

Step Two - Lightly sketch the lines of the foreground, middle ground, and background.  To help when collaging.

Step Three - Start with the background.  I talked with my students a ton about overlapping and changing the size of their collage pieces to show that space of a landscape.

Step Four - Continue to collage until the entire landscape is covered with magazine.  Projects were only 6"x9" (didn't want students to get overwhelmed)

In the end, students created some very awesome works, hands down.  The uniqueness of everyones collaging style also was shown - great for students to see how many ways an art medium can be used.