Creative Challenge for Kids: Cityscapes and Landscapes

A collage cityscape made with yellow, blue and pink paper, with glue stick and sellotape
Photo by Fala Buggy

The challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to make your own collage cityscape or landscape using materials salvaged from the rubbish bin!

Watch the video and then try it out yourself. You'll find all the materials and instructions listed below. This activity is for children (most suitable for ages 5 and up).

Watch the video!

Creative Challenge

Video: Make a collage cityscape or landscape

Play

Materials and instructions

You will need:

  • Scraps of paper, light plastic, card, cardboard or foil - whatever interesting materials you can find around the house.
  • Pencil or marker
  • Glue or tape
  • Scissors
  • A picture of a landscape or cityscape. You can take your own photo using a phone or camera, or find one you like in a magazine or book.

Instructions:

  1. Look carefully at a photo of a landscape or cityscape, and find the background, middle ground and foreground. The background is furthest away from us, the middle ground is in the middle and the foreground is closest to us.
  2. Select three scraps of material that you like.
  3. Cut them into similar sized rectangles.
  4. On one rectangle, draw the outline of the background. On the next, draw the outline of the middle ground, and draw the foreground on the third rectangle.
  5. Cut the three shapes out.
  6. Layer the shapes in different ways to make your landscape or cityscape. 
  7. Once you're happy, stick the layers together with glue or tape.
  8. Finished!

 Inspired by...

A stylised painted view of New York, painted from a high viewpoint looking down on the snow-covered roofs of buildings. Alice Neel (1900-1984), Cityscape, 1934. © The artist's estate.

This is a painting called Cityscape by American artist Alice Neel. She painted it in 1934 in New York. She was staying in a hotel in Manhattan and decided to paint the view she could see through the window. There is a church spire in the foreground, a blanket of snow covers the roofs of the buildings in the middle ground, and a cloud (maybe smoke or steam) floats in the background.

Can you see people walking along the street, and the bright lights of theatre signs?

Credits

This activity was devised by artist Fala Buggy for the National Gallery of Ireland.

About our Gallery at Home videos:

Inspired by works in our collection and exhibitions, our creative activities encourage families to work together to create their own artworks. They are specially produced videos for babies, older children and for those who require sensory input. You can find all the workshops in this series here. Enjoy!

Discover more