Multi-Media Seascapes

Second grade artists created mixed media collage seascapes.

These seascapes incorporated tempera painted paper, watercolor paper backgrounds, and origami.

First, classes created community painted papers to share. The objective was to use paint and texture combs to create the mood and appearance of water. Students chose whether the water looked calm, stormy, had waves, etc., and used both colors and textures to show it. Additional community papers in a variety of colors and textures were created to add land, features of the sky, sandy beaches, rocks, and more.

Next, artists envisioned a time of day, and painted a new piece of paper with a watercolor sky to match their vision.  After skies were created, students made at least two sailboats using this easy and effective set of origami instructions.  The sailboats needed to be different sizes. Students who loved this step created whole fleets of boats!

When all of the different pieces were prepared, students tore and cut the painted paper into long strips, and overlapped them from top to bottom to create waves and distance in their work. Paper that was torn created the look of white caps on the waves.

Boats were tucked in between the waves, the largest ones closest to the viewer, as objects appear to become smaller in the distance. The artist in the work above also added tiny trees on an island to give us a sense of distance. Other artists created items in the foreground, such as beach umbrellas, shells, starfish, coolers, grasses, and more. By comparison in scale to the other elements, these close-up items let us know that the boats and islands are far away.

Many students added additional elements to support the time of day in their picture, such as the moon, sun, or stars in the sky.