For the last few years, I have partnered with Kindergarten’s Hong Kong unit and collaborated with classroom teachers to help students create a city skyline painting. The artwork then becomes a capstone of their learning from the unit and their year in Kinder. This year we tried something new and created a collage instead of a painting.

Students started the unit as employees of the Painted Paper Factory. Because the collage needed lots of brightly colored paper to use for the buildings and the blue backgrounds, each class spent an entire lesson painting as many pieces of paper as they could. Working in assembly-line fashion, 10 Kindergarten classes produced enough blue background papers for all 200 students and enough papered colored paper to use for the buildings.

Prior to painting, my partner and I mixed our own acrylic colors to ensure that they matched the Posca paint markers that we would use later and that the color combinations worked well together.

We then cut the colored papers into various sized rectangles and had students begin gluing them to their blue background. The Kindergarteners found it difficult to place the buildings with the understanding that more will be layered on top so this step was heavily guided.

Students then added the second layer of buildings overlapping the first and then finally filling any small gaps or spaces with small squares at the bottom.

Once all their buildings were glued using a glue stick, students added a layer of latex glue on top to help seal everything down as well as create a smooth finish to easily draw on top of with the paint markers. The latex glue also gives a lovely glossy shine finish to the surface.

The students then looked at different images of Hong Kong buildings and practiced drawing different windows, doors and details to prepare to add these items to their collage.

Students were then given Posca Paint Markers to begin adding windows to each building. Once every building had a different style window, students added more LINES, SHAPES & COLORS to the building to build pattern.

Lastly, students added different rooftops, chimneys, and observatories on top of their buildings and then finished the nights’s sky with a moon and stars.

The classroom teachers then scanned all of the artwork and had them printed on to canvas. Our hope is that having them on canvas will encourage the parents to hang them in their home.