Purchase a plain wooden box from a craft store. Decorate the box with a variety of colorful papers, paints, pictures and objects. The exterior decorations should say something about the artist, either through words or pictures, or both. The materials -- especially glue -- should be of archival quality. Fill the box with meaningful objects of personal significance. The purpose of this activity is to make a box that presents itself as a kind of self-portrait of its creator.
A collage, very simply, is an image that has been pieced together from many materials or many different images. The collage may be assembled on a paper, canvas, board, wall or any flat surface. In fact, a collage may even be adhered to a non-flat surface, such as a ceramic pot. The most important thing is that the collage materials must stick together on the surface that they are being glued to. Collage materials include colorful papers, newspaper clippings, magazine pictures, pages from books, ribbons, stickers, stamps, postcards, paintings and any other two-dimensional material. Collages may be colored on or over so that parts of the collage are made of assembled materials, while other parts of the collage are actual paintings or drawings done by the artist. Paint, crayons, markers, pencil or charcoal may be used to draw over parts of the collage. Use archival quality adhesives. If you use charcoal on the piece, spray fixative on the piece afterward to prevent smudging.
Most teenagers are deeply interested in music, and they know the lyrics to their favorite songs by heart. Some will enjoy illustrating the lyrics, either literally or figuratively. Encourage the artist to convey the meaning of the song without specifically drawing or painting images depicted in the song. This will encourage the teen to explore the theme of the song more deeply and in a way that is abstract and creative.
Old clothes in the back of the closet take on new life when they are drawn on with marker, puff paint or pens, stitched up with embroidery or cut apart and put back together as bags, skirts or scarves. This project teaches teens to reuse old materials.