We love projects where we learn about an artist and their life's work and then the kids are inspired to create in their style. At Maya Lin we studied Picasso.
For this process we took two photos with each child's face, a front view and a side view. They were to cut the photos up and create a new image. We also had magazines available for the children to use as well.
Kate and are big advocates of the kids taking ownership of their work. We generally make an example the kids can use as a starting point. Then we field questions like: Can I use a different color paper than white? Can I add flowers to mine? Can I use sharpies (this questions comes up a lot!)? And we always tell them it is their artwork and they can do what they like.
This project posed a few challenges I hadn't expected. The little guys really didn't want to cut up their faces and the Picasso style reconstruction of their faces was somewhat lost on them. The magazine images played a much stronger role than I had anticipated. The bigger kids came closer to the theme but they were becoming a collage work. We then altered the directions and asked the kids to make sure we could tell who it was in the art.
They used discarded cuts from other kids photos to create some of them. It did not go as I had imagined and it made me very uncomfortable. As the facilitator it was NOT what I imagined. The direction of their process challenged me internally more than I can ever remember. They were bizarre collages. I had to step back and let them go. They are the artists.
The outcome is surreal and thought provoking. It was on our bulletin board outside room 9 and we found many adults captivated by our gallery of work. See what you think.