Metalic Paper Portraits

 Three weeks into our Portrait and Figure Unit and I thought we'd try out some play with processes and mixed media. Metallic paper collages are a fun way to fill in a drawing with color. My students drew portraits on mat board and then tore foil paper of various colors to glue down and  ill in the spaces around the lines. They painted the entire surface black and wiped carefully with damp paper towels to polish back some of the shine without rubbing off the colored foil. The dark lines and batik effect is worth the anxiety of temporarily covering the collage in black. All of my students seemed pleased with their finished products.

Foil Paper Art

My art class just completed a week dedicated to Austrian symbolist artist, Gustav Klimt, whose use of gold and pattern helped usher in the Art Nouveau movement. Last year's film, Woman in Gold, was about his most famous painting, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, which is hailed as the "Mona Lisa of Austria. "

In the spirit of Klimt's metallic looking paintings, we made landscapes and figurative images using foil paper. This lesson plan idea was courtesy of art supply company, Dick Blick. My students each drew an image on chip board (although paper would work as well). Then they filled in each shape with color by gluing torn foil paper onto the board. Little cracks between the paper work well to break up the space. Several students used used plastic tooling tools to emboss a pattern onto the foil. And then they used black tempera to cover the entire image. When the paint was almost dry they wiped the it off using a damp paper towel, which gives a vintage feel to the piece. It was a trick getting the right amount of rubbing, as too much will take the color off the foil, and not enough will keep the color from being revealed.


Some students drew directly from posters I had of Klimt's paintings, while others chose to represent their interests (such as the Nike shoe below).