Henri Rousseau - Rainforest Collages

 

 

The Great Kapok Tree has been the class text for my year 5 and 6 classes. This was such a great theme for the term I took the opportunity to link it with a bit of artist appreciation. I introduced the children to the work of Henri Rousseau through a Power Point. We looked at the way Henri Rousseau positioned his focal points within his paintings and looked at how the golden rule of thirds can help you arrange a good composition.

In the first session, the children were asked to choose two animals from the Great Kapok Tree story to include in the work. They then used oil pastels to draw their animals. I encourage them to draw the outlines in black so the animals would stand out in the finished pieces.

During the second week, the children cut their oil pastel animals out and arranged them on a larger sheet of green sugar paper. The children divided up the paper into thirds vertically and horizontally to create 9 squares on their page. The children then went about arranging their oil pastel animals in the four corners of the centre square. Once they were happy with the composition, they used coloured paper and textures card to collage around their animals using an overlay technique.

The collage stage was a great chance for me to give the children a free range. It was wonderful to see the children try to tell a story within their work.