Free-ish: Group art project
This picture is hanging in my office and other church staff are jealous because it’s so awesome. We originally made it for a a meeting room in the building, but it didn’t end up fitting well in the space and I honestly didn’t work too hard to squeeze it in because I like it so much. With a little bit of math (yes, math) and some paint, you too can have a fantastic piece of art and an ethical dilemma about whether to share it.
For this group art activity, first, find a picture you like. Head to the Google. You should search for only high resolution images because you’ll need to print it in sufficient detail for the kids to be able to manually enlarge it, section by section. Beware of anything too complicated, unless your kiddos like a challenge. Once you choose your photo, copy it and paste it into a word processing or an image editing program. Canva would be ideal.
Warning: math approaching! Skip to the example if your brain works best that way.
Using your program, set the dimensions of your image to an aspect ratio that makes sense, remembering that you’re going to need to cut up the printed image into equal sections. Try not to distort the image (the kids will do that beautifully during the enlargement process anyway). For this project, we did nine sections, but you can choose to do a different number of sections that make sense for the image and the size of the group. Eight sections would easier.
Figure out how large you want the final image to be, whether you have a frame in mind or a space on a wall or a bulletin board, etc. Figure out the “enlargement factor,” that is, how much you need to multiply the dimensions of the original image to fill space you have. Cut the image into equal sections. Measure them and multiply the length and width of the piece by the enlargement factor above to get the dimensions for the blank rectangles of paper you will give your youth to recreate the image.
Here’s an example: If you print the image as an 8x10 and want to make 8 sections, each section will be 4x2.5inches when you cut it up. If the poster frame you have is 18x24, you can make the image into a 16x20 (and then mat it if you want to). This enlargement factor is 2, so the pieces of paper you give your kids for enlarging the picture would be 8x5. Or you can make it 24x30 for a bulletin board with an enlargement factor of 3 (each blank piece of paper would be 12x7.5). Or, you can make it 20 x 25 with an enlargement factor of 2.5, if you like to be difficult and use decimal points (blank pieces of paper would be 10 x 6.25).
Pat yourself on the back for doing math and then cut up the picture and cut plain paper down to the right dimensions. Use a thick paper that’s good for paint if you have some!
Get out your paints and at youth group, each kid will choose a piece of the picture and enlarges it. You can have a color-mixer-in-chief if you want colors to match across the board, but I kind of like it messy and hodge-podgy. It feels more like the church. Just make sure the kids are holding the papers in the right direction so everything fits together well at the end. After everything is dry, assemble, using tape on the back or thumbtacks.
There is cool art to be found in churches sometimes, but there is also bad art and weird motivational posters, not to mention white Jesuses everywhere. This is a great way to give your youth a creative brain break, to make something for the youth room or the church that celebrates the youth as a team, and to create images that emphasize good theology. It would also be super easy to do this for a fundraiser or as part of a larger curriculum on a given topic.
Ta-da! You are a math wiz and proud owner of freeish art. You are awesome at ministry. Good work.
For a remote ministry friendly version of this project, choose a black and white image and either mail sections of picture and blank paper to your kids, or email them their section of the picture with instructions for the right dimensions for the blank paper to enlarge it. Kids can do this with Sharpie or other black markers, which they’ll probably have at home. A word in a cool font might work well for this!
