Abstract Evergreen Collage, 2nd grade

Matisse's collages were our inspiration for these winter-themed cutouts in 2nd grade. Students had studied a bit about Matisse when we made a goldfish still -life painting, and we also learned that later in his life he had to work in a wheelchair and found it easier to work with collage, or cutting and gluing shapes. We used both the positive and negative shapes of our evergreen tree drawings, and dotted out papers with tiny white snowflakes before cutting them out. Matisse's collages are abstract, so we turned our shapes in different ways and used a variety of colors for that fun, abstract look. We finished it off with some hand-stamped larger snowflakes in the empty areas.