A mosaic is a pattern or picture made by using small pieces of varyingly colored material. Making mosaics is an ancient craft with a rich history. The earliest mosaics that we know about were made about 3000 B.C. by the Sumerians in ancient Mesopotamia, now Iraq. Arrangements of colored clay pegs were pressed into walkways. The Egyptians used small pieces of colored materials and stones to decorate walls, furniture, jewelry and other decorative objects. Stones and pebbles were used by the Ancient Greeks to create permanent designs. The Romans cut natural stone into regular cubes and used them to build pictures on walls and floors. These early mosaics used natural colors.
The Byzantines in the sixth century decorated their churches with richly colored ceramic tiles. Mosaic is also used in Islamic art. The fourteenth century palace of the Alhambra in Granada, Spain is a magnificent example of geometric mosaics.
Children enjoy creating mosaic decorations for different holidays and festivities of the year.
Easter - egg with ribbon around it and a fluffy chicken or
rabbit.
Independence Day - flag of the stars and stripes
Halloween - gourds, pumpkins, jack-o-lantern
Thanksgiving Day - basket of fruits and a turkey
Christmas - a big star, Christmas tree with lights and tinsel.
Material
Ruler
Magazines or colored paper
Smooth brown paper
glue (wallpaper paste works well)
paint brush
Presentation
With small children you need to spend time preparing material. Old magazines are a wonderful source of rich color, and work well for this project. Show the children how to tear paper against a ruler into approximately 1" wide strips, and then into 1" squares. You must not cut the paper, because it gives you too hard an edge. Give them boxes to separate the different colors.
Draw a simple design on the large paper, i.e. star, angel, tree, etc. The star can be drawn by first outlining a pentagon, and then extending the edges to form a star.
Two or three children can work well together on this project. Show them how to prepare tables with newspaper and have them wear aprons.
If there will an object against a background (for example, a blue sky, or green grass), it is a good ideas to to place the squares covering the background first.
There are several different ways to handle the pasting:
1. A small area of the brown paper can be covered with paste,
and then the children could apply the small paper squares.
2. Apply the wallpaper paste to a sponge, and the children can
moisten each square with paste before sticking it down.
3. The children can brush glue on the back of each piece before
applying.
Older children enjoy using smaller
squares of paper and being inspired by mosaics from around the
world: Persian lions, Greek and Roman designs, Islamic tessellations.
Almost any idea can be worked up to a real art form.
The mosaic on the right was created by a young girl after a
day collecting stones at the beach.