It's Salvador Dali and his mustache!!I'd love to take credit for this goofy & adorable idea, but I can't. I first saw this lesson posted by Anne at Use Your Coloured Pencils back in the fall. Her 5th and 6th grade students had created portraits of Dali and his famous mustache, but I did my version with my 2nd grade students.
We used a black oil pastel (with no pre-drawing with pencil). When done, the students cut the portraits out, glued them on a construction paper color of their choice, and made a mustache with a black pipe cleaner. I hot-glued the mustaches on when the students were ready. Last week, the second graders had practiced creating a variety of facial expressions using an oil pastel and the 'biggie' paints, so they were ready to draw Dali's expressive face!
But to 'get in the mood' we began by growing our own mustaches! I gave each student a 3"x 9" piece of black tag-board, and they quickly cut out crazy mustaches and taped them on, keeping them on while they worked. They were a real hit! Some of the students used their scraps to create funky eyebrows as well. Even the teaching assistant who comes to art with his 1:1 student made a twirly mustache to wear over his real (and much shorter) real mustache in art!
These mustaches below are samples of those that have been 'grown' by my second graders. Sorry the first batch is sideways. (Oh well; tilt your head or your computer. Thank you, blogger!)
Yes, it's me below (having a bad hair day but a good mustache day!) with two real characters.
By the way, since many of my readers have been 'pinning' stuff from my blog to their Pinterest boards, I'd prefer that you choose to pin just the artwork or the hideous photo of me, and not the photos of my sweet students. I realize I don't actually have the power to prevent you from pinning them, but I thought I'd at least make the request and hope you will respect my wishes. Thanks.
One of the second grade classes shows off their newly grown mustaches! Note that many of them are trying to bug out their eyes, Dali-style!
It was a LOT to get done in a 40 minute art class, and honestly both my 2nd grade classes ran overtime but we all got done. THANK YOU THANK YOU to my wonderful awesome spectacular fabulous 2nd grade teachers for their willingness to wait for their kiddos and to help with lining the kids up quickly for a photo. And another thanks to the very patient 4th grade teacher and her students who were waiting patiently for their art class time while we cleaned up the mustache trimmings all over the floor! I know elementary classroom teachers' prep time is precious, so I appreciate that this lovely teacher was cheerful and non-complaining.
And the minute the artwork went up in the hallway, people (kids AND adults) were smiling when they walked by! FUN, FUN!
You look like Dali's long lost fraternal twin, Phyl! Excellent 'stache, too! Really love this lesson, your board display and the smiles on those kiddo's faces.
ReplyDelete:)Pat
I love the boy to your right with his crooked mustache (I'm still into "crooked" this week after our cityscapes!)!! I also really like that you had them do their portrait in black and white -- looks stunning against the colored background:)
ReplyDeleteIts a real fun.
ReplyDeleteAllan Jones, Alvin C York Painting
I was just thinking of this lesson this morning. Mustaches are so "in" right now. In fact, at last week's Patriots game they gave away Welker (I think) mustache stickers for the fans to wear! I was thinking of making this into an extra activity or school wide drawing contest for my middle schoolers, maybe even get the teachers involved, to draw mustachioed portraits.
ReplyDeleteI love these mustaches! What a great idea. They turned out fabulous!
ReplyDeleteI remember loving this project! Your kids are going to cherish that picture FOREVER! I hope you can give them a copy. . . they will trudge it up one day when they are older and say that is the reason I became an artist, or teacher, or president of the u.s. etc, because of my art teacher.
ReplyDeletePhyl! CLASSIC!!!! I love your humor and wish we had more teachers in this world that really get their students silliness! You are the best! :)
ReplyDeleteI think the silliness is what makes teaching still fun after all these years. I'm going to be embarking on something that will have me in a (non-art) teaching situation with teachers. I hope that they will be willing to laugh too.
ReplyDeleteLove this!! :] Great ideas...being silly is one of the best parts of the job!
ReplyDeleteHa!ha! Love it! Have the seen the movie "Midnight in Paris"? Dali makes a cute appearance in it- a brilliant film.
ReplyDeleteHahahaha! So cute!
ReplyDeleteyou can actually put a 'nopin' code on individual pictures... https://support.pinterest.com/entries/21101932-what-if-i-don-t-want-images-from-my-site-to-be-pinned
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info, Kaytsu, I appreciate it. I'll have to try that out!
DeleteDid you teach them how to draw people first? Or did you start with a directed line drawing of a face?? I am just about to embark on this project, but I wasn't sure if I should do step-by-step with how to draw a face? Thank you!
ReplyDeleteWow, this was post was from January 2012, which means it was about a year and 1/2 ago, but I can tell you it was a very quick project, and hopefully I can remember what I did.
DeleteThe kids had already been learning about Dali. (I just LOVE teaching about surrealism to kids!) They had just completed a surrealism-related project with painted landscapes and melted clocks, and I had a bulletin board that included a whole section of photos of Dali and his mustache. These kids had all previously learned about and drawn portraits, and had recently done a project dealing with creating facial expressions to express emotion.
This was a very quick project, just based on the time I had available. I actually think we did EVERYTHING (including mustaches for the kids) in one 40 minute class period, but I recommend using two. I'm pretty sure we ran overboard with time. Don't try to do this in one class time! (On the flip side, the energetic kids had no time to be distracted and really dove in. They were like little machines, cutting and gluing down the portraits and lining up for me at the hot glue gun with their pipe cleaner mustaches. I think I glued on several of the mustaches after the class was gone.) I should mention that in each of my 2nd grade classes, there was a special education student who came to class with a 1:1 teaching assistant. Those TA's really got a workout that day, helping stick paper mustaches on kids, etc!
Anyhow, I gave a very brief review of a portrait on the white board - shape of head, hair, neck, shoulders; location and shape of eyes, nose, and mouth, and a reminder about ears and eyebrows. Because they drew with an oil pastel which could not be erased, I told them any mistake became part of the image. I don't recall whether we did the faces together (directed) or whether I just demo-ed and let them dive in.
I had my counter set up with a selection of colored paper for backgrounds, and scissors and glue on my central table. They got what they needed when they needed it, and put it back when done. My classroom was very fluid. I know not everybody likes that style.
I hope this helps! I had a particularly silly and rambunctious group of kids, and they really had fun with this!
These are absolutely awesome, best I've seen! I was wondering how to get the 'staches to stick. Thanks for the info! I'll try hot glue! I agree that 2nd grade is a great age for this lesson.
ReplyDeleteHello, I love this art project! What did you use to glue these mustaches on?
ReplyDeleteHot glue. It was a whirlwind, very busy, really a lot to do in one 40 minute period. There was one TA in the room who was honestly very helpful. I set up the glue gun and called the kids over one at a time to glue on their mustaches, so I wasn’t available to circulate while I was gluing, but the kids did great. Not enough time for cleaning up the scraps!
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