William Wegman: Photomontage Project for Kids

My third grade students learned about the photography, films, paintings and children’s books by contemporary artist William Wegman.  I actually talked to Bill on the phone and had an interview with him, which you can read in this blog post.

William Wegman is known for his anthropomorphic photos of dogs dressed in various costumes.

Anthropomorphic means giving human characteristics to animals (or other non-human things.)

We read his books, watched some of his short films and saw pictures of his artworks.  Two of his children’s books are Flo & Wendell and Flo & Wendell Explore.  These are fantastic books and I highly recommend them if you would like to teach your students about Bill’s art.  Here are some peeks at some of the pages in his books.

I love how he combines painting and photographs in his colorful illustrations.  You can get these books here:  Flo & Wendell and Flo & Wendell Explore.  Bill shared with me that he is currently working on a children’s book about his life as an artist.  I can’t wait until that comes out!

After discussing Bill’s artwork, the students neatly cut out some animal heads and glued them to their papers.  Then, they used anthropomorphosis to create interesting settings and clothes for their animals.  The students cut pictures from handouts like this one.

If you would like to download and print out the three handouts I used, they are here: Animal Handouts

The images are all copyright-free and available for use via Pixabay.