Notan Collages

My fifth graders learned about the light/dark principle of Notan and worked to make these wonderful Notan-inspired collages. We worked on 12x18 black construction paper using 3 inch squares of colored paper. To help students have a frame of reference, we folded the background paper in half twice to give us creases to plot our designs. Each square makes two on the project, the pieces you cut, and what is left of the original square you cut from. A single cut will make a bolder design scheme, whereas multiple cuts will create a more intricate design.

Some of my students focused on the Elements of Art for my SGO, and so these projects were great opportunities for positive and negative space, organic and geometric shapes, and color. Other students focused on color theory and the Color Wheel, so along with the concepts mentioned, they had to select a specific color scheme for their designs.

Cool Colors

 

 

Complementary Colors

Warm Colors 

 

Monochromatic Colors

This collage was my absolute favorite! 

Once in a while a student will take a project and make it more than even you as a teacher thought it could be. This is one of those instances. The conception of the idea, visual planning and persistence were lovely to watch and nurture. 

Great job to all of my young artists! The inspiration for this project came from a blogger who is no longer blogging. Which reminds me, I need to update my blog roll!

Did I mention glue sponges??? I decided to try to make them for this project and they worked like a dream! Perhaps I will post on these soon as well.