Creating Winter Collages and the Wheeler Holiday Card

Lower School Art Teacher Bobbie Berking-Dalzell ’73 is always looking to expand her students’ repertoire with new materials, techniques, and methods so they feel successful creating their compositions. When it came to imagining this year’s Wheeler holiday card, Ms. Berking-Dalzell says, “I thought it would be fun to honor the change in seasons and make a winter collage, perfect for 4th-graders. It was also a refreshing composition since drawings had often been done for the holiday card in past years.”

Ms. Berking-Dalzell started by creating a sample composition herself, revising the process along the way. “When designing a new project, I’m conscious of the ability and skills of the age group, what parts might be a challenge and what parts would be successful, and what I want them to learn in the process. The amount of time it takes me to create the piece tells me how many art classes it will take my students to create their compositions. In this case, we had a very short time frame to complete the collages in time for a piece to be selected and printed for the holiday card.”

Of course she also wanted the project to be engaging and fun–and it was! “Students first looked at paintings of winter landscapes and photos of the northern lights. They loved mixing the watercolors to paint the sky and were surprised when I told them I wanted them to rip paper, rather than cut, for fluffy looking snow drifts,” Ms. Berking-Dalzell says. “To include a bit of realism, and save time, I brought in small pine branches from my backyard (that have held up remarkably well!) for students to trim and include if they wanted. White tempera paint dotted for falling snow was a nice wintry detail. Finally, I set out a tray of painted papers in the spirit of Eric Carle, the author and illustrator, for students to cut out creatures, ponds, and birds, if they wanted.”

She made a few examples to visually show each step and prepared more materials than needed for any students who wanted to restart. Students had the freedom to choose their materials and how they used them to create their original composition. Ms. Berking-Dalzell says there were some wonderful surprises along the way. “Students are so clever and always come up with their own take on creating their compositions which inspires me. I’m delighted the collages were a good fit for the holiday card. They are beautiful, and I’m so proud of my students!

She feels it’s important for parents and students to remember that creating the piece—rather than being the one selected for the holiday card–is what makes the project a success. “I feel it’s a win-win for everyone. Having all these beautiful collages digitized on the Wheeler website is really cool!”

In addition to our appreciation for Bobbie Berking-Dalzell’s work with students to produce the winter collages and artwork for this year’s holiday card, we would also like to thank Upper School Teacher of Visual Arts Bob Martin for digitizing the collages so that we could share them in this story–see the gallery below!