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Dreaming Alice Collage

Dreaming Alice Collage

The Harn’s newest exhibition Dreaming Alice: Maggie Taylor Through the Looking-Glass features the work of Maggie Taylor. Her Alice in Wonderland-inspired photographs use found objects to create a story. We can create our own stories through collage and bring new life to objects. Let your imagination take you to another world!

Scavenger Hunt to Help Find Collage Materials

Find something that is:

    • circular
    • green
    • old
    • red
    • smells good
    • moves
    • funny looking
    • from your recycling bin
    • shiny
    • textural (rough, bumpy,
    • smooth, soft)

What You’ll Need

    • Paper-any size (for collage background)
    • Crayons, markers, pencils, or any drawing utensil of your choice
    • Glue
    • Old newspaper or magazines
    • Found objects

What You’ll Do

    1. Create backdrop to your collage by gluing magazine cut outs, colored paper or newspaper to your base paper.
    2. While your background dries, use the scavenger hunt to find three materials from inside, outside, or both that you think you can transform into something new.
    3. Arrange your materials and discuss how you can use each to make one person, one animal, and one object/landscape
      – Examples: Leaf to make hair, bottle caps or buttons as fish scales, egg carton as a snail or turtle, cut cardboard as furniture, cut plastic bags as a river, etc.
    4. Glue down your objects to your base paper.
    5. Using markers, crayons, pencils, paint, etc., add details to your collage to make your person, animal, and object/landscape.
    6. If you want to add more, go and find more materials and repeat process!
    7. After your collage is completed, create a story about the scene you made:Are the animal and human friends? Where are they based on the object/landscape around them? What happened before and after this scene?

Tips and Tricks

  • Using a thicker paper as your base paper is better to support your objects
  • There is no right or wrong way to create your collage, so don’t be afraid to try something new!
  • For heavier objects or objects that are oddly shaped use a hot glue gun or other fast drying glue
  • Pro tip: cut the negative space from around your magazine cut outs to make your collage more cohesive, this may require an x-acto knife (adult supervision necessary).

Credit: Lesson plan developed by Camerin Dunn, Family Programs Intern and 4th year UF History major.

 

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