Matisse-Style Paper Artworks



Year 3 sample (2010)

The Lesson Steps:

1.  Teach the students about Matisse's paper cut-out artworks.  I used a PowerPoint presentation for this. (You can purchase the PowerPoint presentation I made for this part of the lesson at my Teachers Pay Teachers store: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Mrs-Baker- just search for the name of the artist).
2.  Discuss the types of shapes he frequently used.  Draw some up on the board.
3.  Talk about how he used colour, line, shape and negative/positive space.
4.  In particular, point out how the spaces in his artworks are just as interesting as the actual paper shapes he has stuck on.  The children are often quite surprised that this is a planned part of the design.
5.  Ask the students to design their own Matisse-style paper cut-out picture.  I asked my students to draw it onto scrap paper first.
6.  The students then cut out large pieces of coloured Brenex paper and place them onto cardboard as a background.
7.  The next step was to trace/copy their shape designs onto coloured Brenex paper, cut them out and place them onto the background.
8.  When finished, I asked the students to paint over the artwork with PVA glue (this helped keep the paper pieces stuck down and also made the artwork shiny).

Year 3 Student Work Samples:



Year 3 artworks (2010)