Art Lessons for All Ages - Learning from the Masters - Collage and James Rosenquist

On the short list of my New Years' to-do list is to clean out my studio! (Of course right above that item is "make new work"! ) As I was straightening the studio up a little, I came accross several projects I created while teaching various classes to students of all ages - from 4 to 80! I often drew inspiration from famous artists, and adapted their styles and techniques for whatever age group I was working with.

Most of these lessons can be adapted for any age group - elementary, middle or high school, even college and adult art classes - it depends on how much of the background you want to delve into - just the idea, how it was created, or to dig deeper into the artist's intentions and the art historical context in which it was originally made.

I will post several of these projects, and give you a few major points to consider if you want to utilize the project idea for yourself, or incorporate it into your own lesson plan! These are by no means fully fleshed out projects - just an idea that I want to share!

Inspired by James Rosenquist

James Rosenquist is an incredibly accessible and inspirational modern artist and a wonderful artist to look to for an interesting technique.

In an excerpt from "Modern Art" by Hunter and Jacobus... "Rosenquist...summarizes with epic grandeur America's taste for objects, material progress, and social optimism". Rosenquist painted these billboard-sized paintings that were composed of images taken directly from mass produced magazines and newspapers. The images to the left show a compositional study and an actual painting.

While your students may not get to paint on the same monumental scale of Rosenquist, they can still incorporate the technique of collaging images taken from multiple sources such as newspapers or magazines, and combining them in an interesting composition.

Encourage your students to consider elements of design, but also to move beyond just copying the collage that they create - perhaps change scale or color, play with layering and filling in negative spaces with inventive techniques.

If you want to take it to another level, students can develop an interesting narrative to accompany their images.

These are just a few suggestions to get you started - if you are interested in taking the idea further, I suggest looking into the following points-

James Rosenquist (especially his background as a billboard painter)

American Pop Art

Photorealism

The last two images are a collage that I created and the painting that followed.