Smokey the COLLAGE Cat

Dear Grade Fours,

I thought you would enjoy meeting one of our three cats – he is called Smokey and this is our living room (a big mess!) before I came to visit you today. Have you heard of CALICO cats? Well, I think Smokey is a COLLAGE CAT – happiest when lying on papers, or even better – in the middle of a collage piece I am working on. Deep down, Smokey is an artist too.

In the picture of Smokey, you can see the paint chips which each of you chose as your favourite colour. Here they are as Darian arranged them on the table. Some of you picked more than one favourite colour!

Paint Chips

Back at home  with Smokey’s help, I cut out different shapes in tissue paper that matched your favourite colours. Together and with the help of your teacher and Jessie and Marina, we created the colourful rooster pictured below. I call him Raggedy Rooster – is this a good name? For some Raggedy Rooster was too messy, for others he was just right. One thing I love about creating art is that there are many ways to create a rooster – and all of them are fine. One of the things I hope we can learn together is how each of you like to work best as an artist. Some like to be detailed and exact and like everything to be very neat. Others like to cut or tear quickly and don’t mind if everything isn’t perfect. The beauty of collage is that all these ways make for beautiful pieces.

“Raggedy Rooster” – this rooster’s got attitude!

Below “Raggedy Rooster” is the rooster you drew together – when we were learning that a rooster is a collection of shapes. Below your rooster I have included some roosters I have created – one is a collage and is your classroom right now.

Free Range Chicken – watercolour

“Free Range Chicken” is not really a rooster, just a very fancy chicken who gets to run around in purple running shoes. Does she remind you of anyone?

I look forward to seeing you all again on Thursday when we will create something that flies – could be birds, dragonflies, dragons, rockets….Thank you for all the ways you are helping – sweeping the floor, emptying water, teaching me how to speak without an Ontario accent, keeping me in line and giving me such a fantastic and warm welcome to your classroom.

Smokey says good bye – here he is, napping again, near a basket of paper!! His eyes match the yellow paper.

What is Smokey the COLLAGE cat’s favourite colour??

Bye for now,

Sue and Smokey

For the month of March, I am privileged to work with the grade 4 students in Mrs. Anna Maria Burianyk-Noey’s classroom at Balcarres Community School. I will share some of our adventures in this blog from time to time. We are exploring the medium of paper collage and hope to create some rice paper panels to add colour and beauty to the new entrance of the school.