Multi-Stage Mixed Media Silhouettes

Integrating art history into your child’s daily activities can be fun and enriching, even at a young age. When I was a teacher, this was the cornerstone of my curriculum. Even my little preschool students could recall and understand information about artists we were studying. I think one of the ways I managed to accomplish high comprehension and retention was through multi-stage art projects.

Artwork that is revisited and added to, over the course of a couple days (or longer), is considered multi-stage art. Especially when children are very young (and their attention spans are very short), encouraging to build on what they’ve already started (instead of just a scribble and moving on), can produce amazing results. We combined art history with multi-stage art for this project and this is what you'll need, if you’d like to make it too:

• A sturdy surface (such as a canvas board or wood panel)

• Paint

• Painting tools (such as paint brushes, paint rollers, etc.)

• String, yarn or twine

• Small assorted items (found outside or around your home)

• Glue

• Glitter

For this project we were studying Giuseppe Arcimboldo (pronounced Gee-you-seh-pay Ar-cheem-bowl-doh). I wanted my daughter, Laina, to have a general understanding of this artist and his artwork, so at each stage we reviewed the following information:

• He was born in Italy in 1527.

• He was a painter and was best known for his portraits of people made of fruits, vegetables or objects from nature.

We also looked at images of his portraits (click here for a helpful resource) and discussed questions such as, what is this a painting of? What do you see, when you look closely? Who do you think this is a painting of? Why do you think he made his paintings look this way? Do these paintings make you feel happy, sad, confused? Why?

This is also a good opportunity to discuss terminology such as portrait, profile and silhouette.

Here are the three stages we took to complete our Arcimboldo silhouettes:

Stage One: Take a profile photo of your child and print it large enough to fill your surface (we used an 8x10 wood panel). Set the photo aside for Stage Two.

Paint your surface with your choice of colors. We settled on earth-toned, muted colors for the background, so her silhouette would really pop.

Stage Two: Cut out your child’s profile and glue to your background, lining up the bottom edge with the bottom edge of the surface. I also glued a strand of yarn along the profile’s outline to define the area a bit more.

Glue objects, of your choosing, to the picture, filling up the entire space. Laina and I went on a nature walk before and gathered various natural materials, but we also used craft supplies we had on hand.

Stage Three: If there are any little spaces remaining, squeeze some glue in those spots and sprinkle glitter on top. This, of course, was Laina’s favorite part.

I made one for my son, who is too little for this project (although he added his little finger prints to his background). These will become cherished mementos in our home, especially as the kids get older. Even now, seeing their two silhouettes side-by-side just makes me smile.

Let me know if you give this project a try!