Learn Together

Be inspired by renowned artists to experiment and develop your own collage technique. Bonus! As children cut and paste materials they are developing hand-eye coordination.

Materials

  • Paper
  • Pencil 
  • Scissors 
  • Magazines, books, newspapers or colored sheets of paper
  • Glue
  • Your favorite game playing piece

Make Together

Enjoy this art exhibition and catalogue from our friends at Michael Rosenfeld Gallery called The Power of Play. Find artwork inspired by games and play like Walter Henry Williams’ painting Untitled (Three Boys Playing Checkers), 1951, or Charlie White’s drawing of girls playing jump rope in Skipping, 1960. 

Let’s look at Romare Bearden’s work Untitled (1977). What do you see in this picture? What kind of characters do you see? What are the characters doing? How do you think this artwork was made?

Romare Bearden (1911–1988)
Untitled, 1977
mixed media collage of various papers and graphite on Masonite
17 1/4 x 13 7/8 inches 43.8 x 35.2 cm
signed
© Romare Bearden Foundation; Courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery LLC, New York, NY

Romare Bearden used the art technique of collage where you place different materials, such as pieces of paper on to a surface to create a picture. Let’s make a collage inspired by your favorite game!

  1. Think about your favorite game to play. This could be a board game, a sidewalk game, or maybe a sport.
  2. Think of one object that you need to play this game. This object might be a soccer ball, a hockey stick, a board game piece, or video game character. What object will you choose?
  3. Draw the outline of the object you chose with a pencil on a piece of paper. Make sure the outline is nice and big. 
  4. Next, grab old magazines, books, newspapers or colored sheets of paper to cut up and collage with. 
  5. Using scissors, cut out different shapes of your collage materials. You can also rip the paper to create rough edges. Try to have 15-20 small shapes from different sources.
  6. Divide your shapes up into 2 piles, each pile should have similar colors. 
  7. Using the first pile, glue your shapes inside the outline of your object you drew on a piece of paper. Overlap your paper pieces so you don’t see any white space. You may need to cut the pieces so they fit into your outline. 
  8. Using the second pile, glue your shapes outside the outline of your object to fill the whole background.
  9. Once your white space is covered, you are done! 

Create a series of collage artworks to represent even more of your favorite games.

Special thanks to CMOM Board Member halley k harrisburg, director of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery for sharing this online exhibition and catalogue.