Category: Collage in the Classroom

I recently heard from a teacher from Port Aransas, Texas who used my artwork as inspiration for a student art project. Here are a few of the pieces that the 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders created:

As always, it’s a lot of fun to receive student work in my inbox. I definitely enjoyed taking a look at what this group came up with.

This week I heard from Elizabeth Crites, a teacher from Ohio. She contacted me to see if she could send me images of her student work. Her 7th grade students worked on a “painting with paper” project where they looked at images and videos of my artwork. Then they brought in pictures of their pets, or if they didn’t have pets they made collages of other animals, and completed their own “painting with paper” works of art.

Here are some of their wildlife animal collages:

And here are images of the pet collages:

It’s wonderful to see the work of young artists. Elizabeth’s students did a great job – and it’s fun seeing how each student had his or her own style.

On Twitter I found out about a class from Germantown Academy in Washington, Pennsylvania who studied Romare Bearden’s artwork as well as my collage work, and then made their own “painting with paper” collages. When I saw images of the students’ work, I just had to share them! I am pretty impressed by what this class of 4th graders came up with. Here are a few from the class:

The students worked with magazine cut-outs to make the animals and paint for the background.

It’s wonderful inspiring others, and it’s also wonderful seeing what young artists are capable of creating.

This morning I received an email from Ann, an art teacher from Mississippi. She sent me these photos of her 7th grade students with their “Megan Coyle collages.” She told me that she created a lesson plan about my work, showed her students images of my collages, and then had them make their own collages on recycled Masonite boards leftover from the school’s theatre department.

I love it when teachers send images of their student collage art. It’s great seeing what such young artists are able to accomplish with bits and pieces of paper. And it was great seeing another batch of wonderful collages where students embraced the medium – some working mainly with textured magazine strips, some working with solid colors, while others used a variety of both solid and textured. Again, it was fun getting a chance to see these.

Earlier this week I received an email from a teacher, Helen, from New Zealand. She told me that her students studied my work in class and then worked on their own coffee cup collages. The students were a class of 8-year-olds. I thoroughly enjoyed taking a look at their colorful coffee cup collages. And it was wonderful seeing what the kids were able to create while cutting and pasting rectangular strips of paper.

Helen sent along several images of the students’ work (see above and below). While I always enjoy hearing from teachers and students who are studying my work in school, I enjoy it even more when they send along images so I have a chance to see what they’ve made.

Last week I received an email from a teacher, Amanda, from Lancashire, England. She sent me images of collages her students were working on. The 7 and 8 year olds worked in pairs using my “painting with paper” technique to create collages based on animal illustrations from the covers of books written by Michael Morpurgo. Morpurgo is an English author, poet, and playwright that the students were also studying in school.

Below you will find the students’ collage work on the left, with the illustration their work was based on below the collage:

I was very impressed by this group’s work. Especially since the students are so young, and were able to do such a great job of mixing textures with solid colors in their collages. It definitely made my day getting to see their artwork.