I introduced my Primary school art students to the creative mind of artist Henri Matisse. It was a pleasure reviewing his work, life, and story in preparation for teaching this art lesson. This was a great way to follow up project from our lessons on positive and negative shapes. Year groups 1 to 6 (Key stage 1 & 2) made artwork inspired by his famous pieces.
I first shared my Matisse Presentation with them which includes a brief summary of his story and a few examples of his most famous artwork, along with a the project idea we were about to do.
If you’re reading this, and would like try these art projects, I made it easy to teach – just download my Intro to Matisse Lesson Pack.
I was so unbelievably proud about how much they remembered about him and his work when I asked them the following week. Is there anything greater than seeing how much someone has learned from your teaching? I don’t think there is.
One thing I need to drill into their heads though, and these projects help with this, is the idea that a background always comes first, especially when collaging.
They always seem to cut all their front pieces first before they’ve even laid a background despite my clear and repeated instruction.
My younger students had the added bonus of watching this cute story called When Pigasso Met Mootise. It was a great little video that intrigued them right away, especially after their art lessons on Picasso, they already were familiar with the references.
1. Matisse ‘The Snail’ collage
This Snail project was tried with my Year 1 students. They used simples like these gummed paper squares and glued them in a spiral fashion, resembling Matisse’s famous collage The Snail.
2. Matisse Abstract Paper Collage Panels
In this project, my Year 2 students recreated their own Matisse inspired collage with this collage panels project using some of his signature shapes from coloured paper.
Most kids just made up their own shapes which really had nothing to do with Matisse… But at least they explored their creativity while still learning about a new artist.
3. Matisse Geometric Shapes Collage
My Year 3 art students created these abstract geometric collages using coloured paper squares, circles and triangles on top of black paper.
Most of the kids did whatever they wanted with the shapes.
After this art project was completed I gave them my Matisse Colour By Numbers activity sheet for the remaining minutes of class.
My students really love these printable art activity sheets – sometimes they even ask to do them for art homework! (I know, I can’t believe it either)
4. Matisse ‘Creole Dancers’ Collage
My Year 4 students made ‘Creole Dancers’ from construction paper.
It took them a while to understand that the background must come first on a collage, so we did this project in stages.
First we laid and glued our background in colour blocks. Next we made our dancer out of black paper and added details like bracelets, faces and clothes.
5. Matisse Inspired Notan Designs
We played around with positive and negative again with this Notan design art project in my Year 5 class, but used coloured paper to cut shapes and mirror the positive shape with the negative shape.
Some could not grasp the concept of not cutting up the negative part of the paper.
I guess they are so used to cutting out a shape and throwing out the rest. But when they got it. They really. got it!
6. Matisse Shapes Name Poster Collage
My Year 6 group made these name posters using signature Matisse style shapes, plus their names cut out in block letters.
We kept the cut out pieces to reuse them as negative space in the collage.
Makes a really cool looking piece of artwork that they can put up on their lockers throughout the year!
And that’s it!
I can’t say all these projects ended up being successful, but the kids seem to have great fun getting stuck into collage projects.
And I’m so proud that they learned a new artist and were able to remember meaningful information about Henri Matisse, because they had many ways to interact with his work and artistic style.
Download this Matisse Colour By Numbers Printable Art Activity to perfectly compliment any of these art ideas. Printable activities like this one are great for when kids finish early while still keeping them on topic.
Check out my art folder full of printable activities, to view more colouring activities just like this.