Tissue Collage

The Tissue Collage project is another activity that can be done when learning about Vincent Van Gogh.  Like the previous project, this activity starts out by watching a video about Van Gogh and his art work, focusing on "Starry Night".  Once the students have an idea of what "Starry Night" looks like, they are going to make their own out of tissue paper and a glue-water mixture that keeps the tissue paper on the large sheet of construction paper.  First, the students are to cut out different shapes, like Van Gogh used, out of colorful tissue paper.  Next the students will glue the tissue paper pieces to a piece of 12" x 18" construction paper of any color.  They are to make designs that give a feeling of the sky in the background of Van Gogh's "Starry Night".  Once the tissue paper has dried as the background, have the students add design to their background with oil pastels in whatever way they would like. The students will then cut out a city-scape to glue to the bottom of their collage to represent the modern city, compared to Van Gogh's village in "Starry Night".  The student can then be creative in putting windows or designs on the buildings with silver sharpie markers.

An extension activity that a teacher could use with this project would be to have the students create a project just like this, but using watercolor paints to create the background.  They could use blending techniques and mixing colors in order to create the swirls in the sky like they did with the tissue paper.  Also, instead of a city-scape, students could put any type of silhouette in the foreground of their picture.  This project would still be following Van Gogh, but give the students more freedom and creative space.