Henri Matisse, an important French artist, loved all kinds of patterns. Not only the decorative forms he created, but also reproductions of tapestries, embroideries, silks and more. A recent donation of leftover wallpaper inspired this project.1. Each student started with a 12" square of chip board for mounting, and a variety of wallpapers cut in 12" squares.
2. Students chose one main wallpaper for their background and glue it to the chipboard with heavy use of a glue stick.
3. They chose a ground color and chose a wide shape to glue over the background paper.
4. I showed the students how to draw a tree trunk on the back of the wallpaper to cut out and glue it over the ground and background. Tree tops were drawn on another piece of wallpaper to cut out and glue over the top of the trunks. Repeat this step in various sizes. Simplicity of all the shapes is encouraged.
