This is a lesson in non representational image making. Students build a recognisable subject from shapes that are not drawings of the subject’s parts. A circle becomes an eye because of where it sits, not because it looks like an eye. The packaging constraint forces students to use whatever colours and patterns they find. Cereal boxes give you printed text and bright colour. Magazine pages give you photographs as texture. The activity teaches that recognition happens through arrangement. Students often want to add drawn features. Hold them to shapes only.

Non-representational image making

Pablo Picasso Weeping Woman 1937

Accepted by HM Government in lieu of tax with additional payment (Grant-in-Aid) made with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, the Art Fund and the Friends of the Tate Gallery 1987