Romare Bearden Jazz and Art Collage for Kids

This craft project combines two of Bearden’s passions: jazz music and collage! It’s a very open-ended project, so kids can get as creative as they like!

What You’ll Need:

FREE download of collage images; Glue; Watercolor paper; Watercolor or tempera paint; Tissue paper or bleeding tissue paper; Paintbrush; Scissors; Metallic marker (optional)

What You’ll Do:

1. Download and print the collage images. 

2. Cut out the people and instruments. Then decide how you’d like to cut out the music sheet. You can cut it into shapes, rows, wavy lines, or whatever you’d like. (There are enough images to make at least two collages.)

3. Use your creativity and plan your collage! Here’s one idea: Cut the sheet music into rows and glue the rows to the watercolor paper. Then tear or cut up a bit of tissue paper and glue it on the collage in different directions. Glue the music images wherever you’d like! 

Here’s another idea: Start by painting the watercolor paper. You might use the wet-on-wet watercolor technique. (Paint the paper with water and then paint with watercolors.) Or, you might want to mix up the colors in certain areas. If you use tempera paint, you might gently splatter drops all over the paper. It’s up to you! Once the background is dry, add the images to your collage. You could cut out Louis Armstrong and his trumpet. Then cut the music sheet into wavy lines and align them to look like they are coming out of his trumpet. 

4. If you’d like, use a metallic marker to embellish your collage.