Cardboard Mosaics

I'm starting mosaics with Grade 3. This is our first project. Not really a true mosaic but a good starting point for them.

The idea for this came up while my daughter was doing a book report. She was reading "Chasing Vermeer" and for the project component she made a set of Pentominoes.
Afterwards we had a lot of 1"x1" cardboard pieces.........inspiration strikes.


Materials Required:

corrugated cardboard
cardboard for your base...I used the back from a notepad
acrylic paint
crackle medium (optional)






Cut your corrugated cardboard into 1"x1" squares. They don't have to be perfect.

In fact they look better a bit off...

My daughter had traced out a grid on a big piece first.






Take your base cardboard and paint it black or some other dark color. This will be your grout color.

Let dry.

Glue the squares onto your base cardboard leaving space in between.

Paint white. Draw on your picture. I outlined mine in black so you can see it here.

Paint in your design. Use bright colors as we will be putting on a dark wash to antique it later.

When you have painted it the way you want let dry.

I then painted the surface with crackle medium. This is optional. I wanted a crackle finish to the tiles and we have some of this medium at school but you can leave this out if you want.

Let dry.

Using some very watered down paint that matches your grout color, apply a light wash.

This ages your piece making it look like some ancient mosaic you found on your travels.

Let dry.

That's it. Pretty straight forward and it will get my Grade 3's thinking about tiles and mosaics. A good lead into our second project eggshell mosaics, but that will be next time.

Give it a try and I'll see you next time.

gail