Art Lessons For Kids - Build a Collage City
67Kid's Art Project - Urban Collage
Kid's Urban Landscape Collage
This project allows children to learn the basics of landscape without the worries of having to draw perspective. It also lets kid's take a closer look at the shapes that exist in architecture, especially with the tops of the buildings.
If you live in a city, then you're in luck and can recreate either the downtown area, or specific buildings. However, if you live in the suburbs or the wilderness where there aren't many skyscrapers to inspire an urban landscape, you can either make up a fantasy-scape, or look up images on the internet and gather some ideas from your favorite cities, perhaps even cities in other countries, for a unique twist!
This project focuses on shapes large and small to show foreground and background, cutting, overlapping as a form of easy perspective and finally details that can be found on buildings.
What you'll need for this childrens art project
- A sheet of white paper, at least 8.5" x 11" that is thick enough to glue onto
- A variety of colored paper or construction paper to cut your building shapes out of
- Scissors
- Glue Stick
- Ruler
- Pencil
- Choose from the following for details: oil pastels, color pencils, or crayon
How to assemble your Kid's Urban Landscape Art Project
1. Using the ruler to help get straight lines, draw out a variety of sizes of rectangles and squares on the colored papers. These will be the basis of all buildings, unless someone wants a large dome in the center, in which case, draw that shape as well.
2. Using a ruler or freehand, cut out a variety of shapes that could fit on top of the buildings. My example has a dome. Triangles, arches and circles all make for interesting building tops.
3. Cut out your shapes and lay them on the white paper, situated horizontally, without gluing them yet.
4. Once the buildings are in place, with overlapping to make it look like a city all the way from left to right, carefully glue them down.
5. Once glued, use your drawing tools of preference to put in the sky, windows and any other details you see on the buildings. Vary the colors to make it more interesting. The example shows windows in black, brown and blue.
And, remember: Art is a practice, the more you do it, the better it gets!
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This is definitely a fun idea for kids. Although my kids are all grown up already, I will share this with my nephews and nieces.
dohn121 - I agree! The interesting thing is, while working with kids, they LOVE to get their hands involved drawing and gluing stuff. I'm sure kids are learning lots of new skills that I never did by growing up "plugged in" to the computer, yet, I am a bit skeptical of what they'll miss out on if they don't continue doing hands-on experiments, creating and inventing. Its a process that I don't think can be replaced by technology. I wish there was more of a focus of the importance of it in schools. Until then...I'll keep on posting new ideas!
Jill - Please do share it! I'd love to hear how it goes. Its a fun project for sure.
Good idea!
I absolutely love collaging with kids and I think that the urban collage is a great idea. I think one needs to be aware however, that depending on the age of the children will determine how they perform in this activity.
Under 6 yr olds I think you may have to precut many different shapes for them to choose from and they also probably need to see lots of pictures of urban landscapes before they can make their own.
faigekobre - Good point! I have done this project with children as young as 5. I did pre-cut shapes with them, which certainly helped in the short time I was allotted for the class. My 6 year olds were ok to cut shapes, even if they were a bit warbly-looking. The picture above is from a student who just turned 7. It is dramatic how motor-skills improve so quickly. I always show pictures of other artists work prior to making a project, and I should and will begin adding that recommendation under "tips". Thanks for your input. If you use it, I hope you have lots of fun! Thanks for the feedback!
dohn121 Level 3 Commenter 2 years ago
A great idea for children. Seems like in this day and age, kids are losing their childhood to the net and are getting a "quick fix" on fun in that manner (I know, I'm a hypocrite!) Kids needs to get back into finding inexpensive and constructive outlets to past the time. Thanks!