Rainbow in a frame: Process Art
I want to dive right in and show you these amazing rainbows in a frame.
You could also call them rainbow collages or rainbow stained glass windows. In either case, this is a great art process that the children can explore completely on their own.
All that is needed to get started is…
- Colorful pieces of tissue paper or cellophane
- Cardboard frames
- Clear packing tape
Clear Packing Tape?
You may be wondering why I used clear packing tape instead of clear contact paper. It’s simple. Clear packing tape is stickier and easier for me to control. Back in the good old days, I would have used clear contact paper but over the years, I have found contact paper to not be so sticky anymore. Sooooo – my choice for children’s art processes now is always clear packing tape over contact paper. In fact, I LOVE using clear packing tape for tons of different kinds of processes in my classroom. I really need to write a post just about clear packing tape some day.
Process Art Rocks!
To be clear, the only reason I am calling these “Rainbow” frames is because we read a book about rainbows before the children made their rainbows. In the children’s minds, these are rainbows even if they don’t actually look like a rainbow. That is what I love about process art – the result is defined by the child instead of us grownups.
Making Choices
As you can easily see, the children chose the colors they wished to add to the sticky side of their window frame and then pressed them on. Some children used only one color. Some children used only pink and purple. But most of the children used a combination of all the colors. It was definitely their choice.
Along with making choices in color, the children also took their time to decide on how they wished to lay their pieces out. Some of the children made straight rows. Others made patterns. Others chose to just fill in the space with as many pieces they could fit and didn’t worry so much about the arrangement of the pieces.