Art Adventure Kindergarten - Lesson 3

Mosaic Art

Objective: To introduce the concept of mosaic art by talking about its definition, how it’s created, and

providing examples of mosaic art. The students will have a chance to create a mosaic of their own.

A) Introduction:

Today we are going to talk about mosaic art and some artists that create those works of art. What is mosaic

art? It is a piece of art or image made from the assembling of small pieces of colored glass, stone or other

materials. Most mosaics are made of small, flat, roughly square, pieces of stone or glass of different colors

known as tesserae. There are 5 basic types of mosaic art: classical, pebble, industrial, hand-cut, and custom

ceramic inserts. Let’s talk about a few art terms:

B) Vocabulary: (if the vocabulary words have been provided on poster boards, refer to them here. Otherwise,

write the words on the board before you start the discussion on vocabulary)

• Tesserae: A small block of stone, tile, glass, or other material used in the construction of a

mosaic.

• Mosaic: Many small pieces to make a big picture

• Mosaisist: A person who creates a mosaic

• Positive Space: The inside of a shape or form. Anything that takes up space.

• Negative Space: The empty space between and surrounding shapes and forms.

C) Artwork

Title: In her Shoes

Artist: Lin Schoor

Details: Mosaic

• What do you see in this picture?

• Can you see how many little piece of tile and/or glass were used to make this image? Does every piece have

to be the same size or same color? No! You need to mix the size and color of each piece in your mosaic to

help create your image. Instead of using paint colors and brushing them onto the canvas, the artist used

pieces of glass or tile to create the picture you see.

Title: Night Shift

Artist: Sonia King

Details: Mosaic

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Art Adventure Kindergarten - Lesson 3

Mosaic Art

• Is this an image of an object or just a fun design? Does a mosaic have to be of a specific image or can it just

be a design or patten? The correct answer is: is can be whatever you want it to be! The cool part about art is

that art is never wrong. You all have different ideas and like different things. If I asked each of you to make a

mosaic you would each create something totally different and unique to you!

Reinforcement Activity

Materials provided:

paper plates, tissue paper, a cut out of the body of the snail

Students Supply: glue sticks and markers

Each child is given a paper plate, a body for the snail, and pieces of tissue paper. They will be asked to glue the

individual pieces of tissue paper to the paper plate to create the snail’s shell. Once they have completed that,

they will glue the body to the paper plate. The final step will be to draw an eye for the snail. The snail’s shell can

use negative space and have empty places or use positive space and be totally covered. Everyone’s snail will

look a little different!

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Art Adventure Kindergarten - Lesson 3

Mosaic Art

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