Eric Carle is well known for beautiful collage-style illustrations that fill the pages of his books. We explored this style of artwork through painted paper story telling and our children created painted paper collages that I think would make Mr. Carle very proud…
It all began with the book The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse. Eric Carle has written this book in a style that makes it easy for the children to read along.  The first pages of the book feature a boy who exclaims, “I am an artist,” and he then proceeds to share all of the pictures he has painted…
The artist paints animals in rather unusual colors, which the children found to be quite funny. He paints a red alligator, a yellow cow, and a polka dot donkey…
After reading our story, the children helped retell the story using only artwork…
Each piece of paper was painted before we read the book using paint colors and designs that resembled the artist’s animals shown in the book…
As each painted paper was shown to the children, they were able to recall the animal that matched the color in our book. If they couldn’t recall the animal, we simply took a second to look it up and find the matching animal…
As we looked at the book and our painted pieces of paper, we took notice of how the animals looked like they were made from  pieces of painted paper. So we cut up the paper into smaller pieces for the children to create their own painted paper collages…Â
Several of the children already had an idea of what they wanted their collage to look like. Others weren’t quite as sure, but still enjoyed the process of cutting up the paintings into different shapes…
As the children cut up the painted paper, they laid the pieces out on their white paper and when ready, glued the painted pieces in place. Some children then used markers to add details to their pictures…
Some of the children had their own story to tell about their painted paper collages. For example, this was a lion drinking water…
And this collage was a self-portrait…
And this collage was the ocean…
Some of the collages were just that…collages. They didn’t represent an animal or necessarily tell a story. For some children, the experience was more about the process of cutting and gluing…
But every collage was beautiful. Simply beautiful…
Available on Amazon
Links to grow on:
A wonderful collection of Eric Carle books and activities by Teach Preschool
Art inspired by music by Sun Hats & Wellie Boots
Art activity: zoo animal puzzles by Hands On: As We Grow