Get Creative with This Eric Carle-Inspired Art Project

A great way to inspire young readers is to encourage a love of books.  Picture books with rich illustrations are a great place to start.  Learning about the unique artistic methods of favorite authors and illustrators can be a great way to build literacy skills and deepen understanding of books, stories, and the creative process.

Eric Carle www.eric-carle.com/home/html is a favorite with young children.  His stories feature many wonderful insects, animals and characters and incorporate information about the natural world.  His method of creating painted paper collages is a fun project for kids and adults to try together.

The first step is creating a collection of painted papers.  This is a playful way to begin because artists can explore line, shape, color, pattern, texture in creating unique and beautiful combinations of color using crayons, watercolor, markers, stamps or any other favorite media.  

These papers will later be used as the raw material for collage so think about creating some variety.  Perhaps some designs are high contrast with vivid colors while others are a blend of similar colors.  This is also a good time to think about warm and cool colors, creating papers with warm reds, oranges and yellows as well as some with cooler blues, greens and purples.

Once you have assembled a collection of papers, think about what sort of subject you want for your collage.  Perhaps it is a favorite animal, plant, or environment.  Look through Carle's books to get ideas and inspiration.  Also notice the distinct shapes Carle uses to assemble the subjects in his books.  For example the caterpillar is a series of ovals.

The next step is to break down your subject into simple shapes.  Are flower petals circles or ovals?  What shapes would create the body and tale of a fish?  Begin cutting out shapes from your papers to assemble into animals, plants, and other elements of the environment.  Perhaps you create a scene to tell a story as Carle does or just enjoy creating a collages of favorite things

Learning to break down objects into simple shapes is an important skill employed by artists.  Collages with cut out shapes are a great way to practice this because children can move the shapes around and try different arrangements before gluing them down.  

Once glue is added, children can continue to build their design on the paper, choosing colors and patterns from the painted paper to fit the scene.  Join in with your child and have fun creating painted paper collages together.