Child’s Play- Turning Children’s Drawings into Mosaics

For this project, I turned an entire 3rd grade classrooms drawings into a mosaic.   The mosaic was then installed onto a concrete bench that became part of an outdoor classroom.

Children where give the direction to draw a back yard.  The instruction included some discussion of a back yard habitat and what you might find.  The students were given a pencil and a piece of plank paper.  The drawings were as different as the children, but they all had common elements.  I took the common elements and drew a master drawing. The master drawing would later become the pattern for the mosaic.  The common elements included apple trees, flowers, and suns with clouds.  These became the foundation of the design.

I then took the unique special elements from the drawings, like the bee and house and added them to the master drawing as major caricatures in the design.

In the first child’s drawing you will find the bee and on the second you will see the house. Both are part of the mosaic above. My goal was to keep the essence of the child’s drawing and not lose the charm in the translation, from drawing to mosaic.

The child’s drawing of the dog is above.  In the mosaic I made the legs thicker but kept all the other features.

The drawing with the house also had a hedgehog; the critter appears in the mosaic below.  I dedicated this mosaic to the women’s club for due to their book donations to the school library.

If you would like me to create a mosaic from your child’s drawing please contact me any time.