Creating a Collage with a Preschooler (My Little Pony!)

What did I do on our two “cold” days off school this week?  Well, besides snuggling under the warm covers and working on some school work, my 4 year old and I made some canvas collages for her bedroom.

While I would not necessarily recommend this for a project in an art class, I see no problem introducing appropriation in the context of Pop Art.  After all, Andy Warhol used cartoons in his famous art.  I observed a really awesome high school lesson where the students recreated cartoons and imagery from pop culture in a grid format.

That being said, this was simply a fun project my daughter and I did together.  She wanted some My Little Pony pictures in her bedroom and I thought this would be a fun project we could do together.

First, I gathered some canvases I had that either 1) were blank and I haven’t used yet or 2) paintings I started and realized I did not like how they were turning out.

Materials:  canvases, Matte Medium, paint brush, brayer, children’s books & stickers, craft paint & rollers

First, the two of us cut out pictures from some of her paperback pony books.  I cut out some and she cut out some.  Her little hands got tired after awhile.

Next, we spread the Matte Medium on the canvas with a paint brush.  She and I both arranged the pieces on the canvases.

She used a brayer to flatten the pieces and I used a credit card/my fingers to smooth out air bubbles.  Then we painted more Matte Medium on top.

After the decoupage was dry, we added pink and peach craft paint.  I placed little dabber caps on top and the paint was easy to paint around the cartoons.  She did a lot of the painting herself.  If any paint got on top of the images, we wiped them off with a baby wipe.   After this layer was dry, I splattered some watered down white paint on top in various places.