Eric Carle Inspired Collages

Let's get inspired by Eric Carle! Eric Carle received an art degree at a well known university in Germany. After coming back to the United States he worked as an artist and graphic designer until he collaborated with a children's book author. After that he started writing his own books. He has published more than 70 books! Eric Carle has a unique and well recognized art style. He uses painted papers and cuts them to then collage the pieces together to create an image. The art project I will share here today was inspired by his butterfly, but you can create any kind of bug, or animal, or even plants, or houses, or tree houses! You can create whatever you imagine. It's all up to you.

I'll share how we created our artwork with you today so you can do your own, but if you want to see how Eric created his art you can see it near the bottom of this page.

Let's make some art!

what you'll need:

• paper for a surface to put the collage on

• a variety of painted papers

• glue

• scissors (if not taring the paper is also an option)

• (optional) extra things to add embellishments like paint markers, colored pencils, crayons, pastels, maybe even some gems!

If you purchased one of my Eric Carle art kits you will already have a variety of painted papers that you can use for your collage. If you feel like you want to make more painted papers so you have even more colors and patterns and textures to choose from, feel free to do that! Plus it's fun! If you don't have one of the kits from me you will need to make some painted papers first in order to do this project.

One of the reasons I love making this kind of art is because I often have extra paint after finishing an artwork. I don't want to waste the paint so I just grab an extra piece of paper and start covering the whole paper with the paint. I experiment with mixing the colors and even putting it on thick or thin. I'll make another post later on making these kinds of papers but for now just think of it as an experiment and for giving you painting muscles a work out.

Before you get started you will need to have an idea on what you want to create. Maybe flip through your own Eric Carle books or check some out at the library for some inspiration. Do you have a favorite animal? Do you like beetles? Is there something you really like to draw a lot? Is there a place that is really special to you that you want to recreate as a collage artwork?

The Very Hungry Caterpillar, 1969 By Eric Carle

After you have figured out what you want to create, you can start cutting out your papers and arranging them how you like. If you looked up Eric Carle's process you will see that he drew his out first and created a template to help him with cutting and arranging. You can do that if you want, but you don't have to. I didn't, I just cut the shapes I wanted and arranged them. Don't glue anything down until you're happy with it.

You can use whatever glue you have. We used Elmers school glue and painted the glue on with a paintbrush. Be sure not to let the glue dry in your brush if you want to use it again. If you use this kind of glue you can also glue over the tops of your painted papers. It helps keep them down extra good and it drys nice and clear. You can also be fancy and use Mod Podge if you'd like. or just plain old glue sticks. whatever you have will do.

After you have finished gluing and the glue has dried you can leave it as it is, or you can grab some of your other favorite mark making materials and add some details. Be sure to share your creations with me by tagging oneartsprings on facebook, I'd love to see your master peices!

In case you have some older kids who would be interested in doing something more complex with the painted papers here are some examples. At first look this might appear to be something just for younger kids but it can be for any age.