These accounts are chock-full of interesting tidbits that make them ideal for playing with mixed media, color, texture and layering in a collage. A high school student, Annabeth Tao, experimented with these concepts to incorporate details like “Italian singer,” “jazz and pop,” “exciting performance,” “fashion dressing style,” and “aerobics promoter” from Lara Saint Paul’s obituary into her piece:
I bought a lot of luxurious materials like golden wires, fabric, beans and glitter in the secondhand store to make Lara Saint Paul look as fabulous as she was. I accidentally saw two large records lying on the table in the secondhand store, and successfully got the idea to use them as my collage base.
I learned to connect the key words and materials that I can use for the collage and freely explored the way to present the obituary in a very interesting way so that the audience could notice her characteristics at the first glance.
With thousands of obituaries to choose from and the freedom to use any materials they want, these mixed media collages are a great way to spark student creativity and ingenuity.
Supplies:
Students will need to refer to the Obituaries section to find their subjects. For the collage, they can experiment with a vast range of materials — magazines, text, fabric, found objects, stamps, photographs, wire, beans, glitter, newspaper, original drawings — anything goes! You can find more ideas for collage supplies here.
Directions:
1. Choose a New York Times Obituary.
2. Read it and, as you read, brainstorm images that are associated with the person in the obituary by creating a mind map. Keep in mind that the images do not have to be of the person.
3. Find and experiment with a vast range of materials to create the collage. Magazines, text, fabric, found objects, stamps, photographs, wire, beans, glitter, newspaper, original drawings — anything goes!
4. Assemble your final collage. Layer the materials to make a cohesive composition.
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