3-d Paper Abstract

Here is a fun, easy project that we did a few weeks ago to get back in the artistic swing of things.


Essentially, we just fooled around with paper to make different shapes, played with their arrangement and then glued them down. The kids had fun with this project and even named their creations.

To see the dimension better, I took the following pictures at an angle:

E's Burning Black River:













H's Tidal Wave














First, I had them choose a 3-color pallette of adjacent colors on the color wheel (red, orange yellow & Green blue purple were their decisions). I did this to keep the project from becoming one of "let's see how many different colors I can cram on a page". My son, especially, would go with that if given the option, and my daughter would just make everything pink. Not that that's bad, but I wanted a little more effort toward composition.

Next, the day before our art lesson, we took the time to paint a piece of paper with different combinations of the chosen colors. They mixed the colors, painted patterns of squiggles, dots, and swirls on top of different sections, and just generally had fun with the paint. This paper will be getting ripped up in the next part of the lesson, so I made sure they knew not to get too attached to their masterpiece. After these papers were dry and the kids were in bed I painted the back of their papers quickly with a color from their pallete so that no white paper would show. This whole step is not strictly necessary, but I wanted my younger child to have some experience with mixing colors, and these patterned papers do make the final project interesting. If you only want to spend one session, though, you could just use construction paper for the whole project and it would be fine.

Next we tore our different colored papers, folding and creating shapes as we went. Kids, at least mine, often get caught up in precision work when they are using scissors. I wanted them to focus more on the colors and composition, not specific representative shapes, so we tore our papers instead.

Finally, we glued them down. We tried to keep one color from being adjacent to the same. As the kids created their art, suggestions of subject evolved, wave for H's and fire for E's. They then glued on more elements to reinforce this impression.

As they worked and talked about subject for their pictures I interjected a little bit of warm/cool color theory. Warm colors are often used for energetic, hot, agitated subjects. cool colors are often used for relaxing, cold, quiet images. Fortunately for me, their ideas of titles for their work played into this theory well. This was a little added bonus of art theory discussion which I had not planned. It's optional to discuss, but worked for us.


Some ideas for 3-d folds:

fan, accordion, curlique (wrap around pencil), fringe, crumpled balls, flat paper glued onto an accordion to 'pop' off the page, tubes...






Extensions:

My plan is to re-visit this assignment at a later date with complementary colors to see the difference in the affect.

Also, all these paper folds can be nicely incorporated into other projects such as masks or a 3-d picture. I am thinking that my son would like an under sea picture complete with curlique waves and twisted sea weed...

A Note about Preschoolers:
Obviously, this is fun to do with little ones, just don't worry so much about composition with them. I would probably still limit their color pallette, though. Here's a great bonus: All this manipulation of the paper is FANTASTIC for their fine motor development!

Materials:
White paper and paints (optional)
construction paper to rip
construction paper for background
glue
strong little fingers :o)