Roman Mosaics

At the end of every school year there is almost enough time for fifth grade to complete one last project: Roman mosaics. In the past, I've had every student create an animal, but this year I allowed for a subject matter of choice. The only real requirements were that students needed to be able to draw the image without a computer reference photo and that it needed to be large enough to be able to fill with small pieces of construction paper. Students first drew a light outline of their subject and proceeded to fill the image in with small construction paper shapes. Many students worked with squares, but others got creative and cut pieces that would fit the spaces they needed. The key to creating a mosaic is that there needs to be space in between the shapes; if the tiles were overlapping, that would be a collage, not a mosaic. Since gluing small pieces of paper together is such a lengthy process, I think next year I want students to create their mosaics by drawing them. I assign drawn mosaics as a homework assignment, many of which came back very detailed, so I think allowing them to draw the mosaic instead of cut and glue it would provide many benefits: 1) Students would actually finish before the end of the school year. 2) It makes it easier to fill small areas with tiny shapes when they are drawn with a sharp utensil. 3) Students can add value by coloring the areas in with multiple hues instead of using the plain construction paper that we have in the art room. I am hoping that I will have several artworks completed before the end of the school year so I can add them to the virtual art show. After today there are only nine days of school left!

This artist is cutting out shapes that will fit together harmoniously like puzzle pieces.

This is an example of the drawn homework mosaic. This student used a variety of shades to make her quetzal look more realistic and varying shape sizes to emphasize the bird!