Collage paper cuts – Year 2

Collage paper cuts – Year 2

Year 2 have been learning about the life and work of French artist Henri Matisse. They shared story books about the artist and watched some short video clips of the artist working in his studio. They focused on his work from the later part of his life when Matisse became very poorly and was unable to continue painting at an easel. He found a new way to create art using ‘paper cuts’ which was essentially drawing with scissors. Year 2 had lots of opportunity to look at examples of his work and they talked about the shapes and colours that he used. 

The children started to develop their own compositions using irregualar, organic shapes using lots of different colours. They created their own compositions in their sketchbooks and practised overlapping and layering their shapes. They also tried placing their shapes separately to see what effect that created. The children learnt how to place their shapes and move them around on their paper before deciding finally where to glue them. 

Next, they looked at positive and negative spaces created by the organic shapes they created. They learnt that if they cut out a shape ( positive space) from a piece of paper it left behind another shape created by the hole that was left behind ( negative space). They chose two contrasting , coloured pieces of paper and experimented with positive and negative space and shapes. 

Finally, the children worked on a large scale, moving away from tables and instead using the hall floor to work on a big scale. Collectively, the class created irregular shapes of different sizes and colours and placed them carefully to create a large paper cut drawing. They worked on a large piece of white paper and brown paper to create two final compositions. 

Amazing work year 2!