Frank Stella - like Abstract Collage Results

Here are a few of our 5th graders' finished 3-D collages. I wrote about the lesson here last week.

Students first made 3 crayon patterns using complementary colors on paper they had cut to whatever shape they wanted to paint on (following Frank Stella's advice to "Make what you want to paint on.")

They glued them on a piece of 8" X 10" foam core and used water colors to "extend" their patterns onto the background.

One boy wanted to extend his pattern around the corners onto the sides -- GREAT idea!!

A few are on display in the classroom, but the rest will be posted in the Auditorium for all to see. The pieces stick out too far for me to mount them on our glass display boards.

 Students found the brush control necessary to paint some of these more intricate designs pretty challenging. I am trying to decide whether to display them as separate entities or....

push them together like this (above) and make a more collaborative display.

I am kind of liking this "together" idea. I can have the kids work together to find sets where the colors from one piece merge with the same colors on another piece -- like the orange/blue sections above. What would you do???