Eric Carle inspired collages

How do you do an art camp focused on children illustration without looking at Eric Carle.

I was honestly surprised that the kids did not recognize him name, but knew immediately who he was once I started reciting, "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" by heart! Thanks to the million times I read it out loud to my now 23 year old daughter.

I can't remember my cell phone number but can remember a book I read 23 years ago.....

Anyway, this project was fun from beginning to end. We started by turning the studio into a paper making factory.

walrus. 8 year old

Each child had a palette of paint in primary colors plus a stack of copy paper.

I used this part of the project as a chance to have them really learn about color mixing and adding tones and tints along with my all time favorite teaching moment, texture and line!

school of fish, 7 year old

The kids created a large variety of papers in a multitude of colors with patterns, textures, and interesting lines. They had a ball. We made so much paper that I have a large stack leftover to utilize at a later date on another project.

Mr. Fox, 5 year old

This also gave me the opportunity to discuss with them what collaborative art is all about. I told them that we would all be sharing the paper the next day and so they were participating in a collaboration that benefited the whole group.

cougars, 6 year old

The next morning arrived and they could not wait to use the handmade papers they had created.

Each child chose an animal they wanted to create and looked at some reference photographs that I pulled from my files. Another great teaching moment as they needed to reduce the animal details to defining shapes in order to create their pictures.

cougar, 7 year old

I used matte medium for glue, in hopes this would help the younger children get things really stuck on the paper. In the future, I will go back to just a regular glue stick as I found the matte medium left a definite film over the artworks where they globbed it on.

leopard, 10 year old

All of the kids enjoyed cutting shapes, finding different color papers and then textures they thought were perfect for their animal.

Was the studio a mess afterwards? you bet.

But a quick sweep of the broom and all was back to normal in no time.

cat, 5 year old

Well worth it for the amount of fun the kids had creating this cute pieces of art.