Surrealism in Space!

I came across a really cool post on the Italian blog Arteascuola, and decided to adapt the project to use with my after school DragonWing Arts students.  Thank you to blogger Miriam Paternoster for her great idea!  You can find her post, HERE.

There were three parts to creating the final project.  But before we even started, we discussed surrealism and and looked at images by various artists.  We noticed that many of the paintings created a sense of space and depth by using perspective.  So of course we had to discuss what linear perspective is!  Then we were able to start.

Step 1 was creating the background, and outer space sky.  We painted with black ink, and let it dry.  Then we painted on some glittery purple paint (it was a free sample I was given at a convention, and the consistency is rather thin and jelly-ish and doesn't cover well at all, but it create a nice effect great over black).  We also splatter painted some white tempera paint.  When it was dry, metallic and glittery markers and colored pencils were used to add some planets and stars and such.

Step 2 was to create a simple room interior on a separate paper, using one-point perspective.  We used the vanishing point and our rulers to create a checkered pattern on the floor, and also to place some doors and windows.  The rooms were painted with liquid watercolors, and salt was added as desired o make a funk textural look to the walls and floor.  When the paint was dry, some details were added with Sharpie, and the windows and doors were cut open.  Some were cut out completely, and others were cut so that they could open and close.  The ceilings were completely cut away. 

Here we are, ready to cut out our ceilings and doors.  

The Sharpie embellishments haven't been added yet.

Step 3 was assembly and magazine collage.  The parts were glued together, and students picked images to put in their rooms and skies.  I was originally planning to cut a window flap in the skies, and take and print photos of the kids so they could be entering through the window.  Thank goodness I didn't tell the kids about this plan, since we ran out of time and never got to it!  The pic below shows the work created in steps 1 and 2, ready to be assembled.

The pics below are the finished pieces, after the magazine collage was added and everything was glued together.  (We used Elmer's Glue-All applied with a paintbrush.)   The pic at the top of the post is another of the complete pieces.

I have just 4 kids in the class this fall, which sometimes makes an odd dynamic.  I had great expectations for the kids putting things like giant hamburgers or ice cream cones or insects or tubes of toothpaste in the room or in the windows, or a fish flying through the sky, and so on. I made an example with a giant foot coming through a door, and a large hand reaching in a window, as well as a huge eyeball and a lizard, and a chocolate chip cookie.  I had loads of magazines - nature, home, and more, and so I was very surprised at the odd choices the kids ultimately made.  I've been teaching a long time, and usually kids would have been intrigued by my example but these kids had other ideas, decidedly different from my expectations.  But I think they are pretty cool, nevertheless!!!

Teaching Art - the sensitive concept of nudity

This photo has nothing to do with this post (though the caterpillar is certainly naked) but I shot it today and wanted to share.  It is sometimes called a 'parsley worm' but will turn into a black swallowtail butterfly.  It would be great, I think, for teaching pattern and repetition, or for an Eric Carle lesson on the Very Hungry Caterpillar! 

Because of Pinterest, people often view posts I wrote a long time ago.  Today I received a comment on a post from December 2010 titled Surrealism again - 4th grade collages.  In this post I mention the video Get Surreal with Salvador Dali, as I have on several other posts on this blog.  I have shown it many times over the past few years.  The commenter said "I am appalled that you would show that video to fourth graders. It has SEVERAL instances of nudity. I am a teacher, by the way, and I would never expose such young souls to any form of nudity. That is precisely why this country is going down the toilet."  I responded by thanking the writer for his/her comment, and saying that I would address the topic here in a new post.  So here I am.  Though I must take a moment here and say I am flattered.  I  have never been accused of anything quite so profound as the demise of our country.  Wow.  I wonder how my showing a museum-made movie about a famous artist and art movement to 4th graders compares to the performance of Miley Cyrus at last night's VMA awards?  Which one of us is more morally bankrupt?  Do you think Miley learned those moves from watching a movie about a famous artist?  Am I being too snarky here?

So, about that video, referred to in the comment:  Get Surreal with Salvador Dali is an award-winning half-hour video available for free to educators from the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg Florida.  It is an educational video made for kids.  It is narrated by two kids.  By the end of the video the kids will be singing along with the Dali song.  They love this video!  A shorter version of it is also available on YouTube, though I personally use the full-length version.  Yes, I admit it has some brief glimpses of nudity, which I referred to in my original post as 'giggle-worthy', and will describe here.  First of all, at one point there is discussion of a double image in a painting, and there happens to be a part of a woman with her naked breast showing off to the side of the painting, though this part of the image is never discussed.  But the most prevalent nudity in the video is the use of quick clips which show this statue (below) chatting with another piece of artwork as part of the narration of the video.  The drawers open and close as she talks and it is very silly. 

 Before I showed the video to my 4th and 5th graders, I discussed with my students what they would be seeing, in regard to the nudity.  (I also discussed it with my principal, who absolutely gave me the go-ahead to show the video.  Believe me, I did give it the appropriate consideration before showing the movie.)  Anyhow, prior to the movie, I reminded the kids that lots of artwork throughout history has been done based on the human nude, because it is a beautiful source of artistic inspiration, and that if they went to an art museum they would likely see paintings and sculptures based on the human form.  I told them that sometimes when they saw a nude in the Dali video it would be funny and it was OK to giggle, but to control themselves so they didn't miss any of the movie since it moves very quickly and is quite informative, and I expected them to remember and be able to discuss what they had seen.  In truth, the kids laughed more at the flying mustache than at the talking 'chest of drawers'!  But the biggest giggle from the kids, the only place where I actually have had to stop the video briefly, was when the word 'crutch' is spoken with a trill of the letter R.  (crutches are mentioned in the video as a commonly used item for symbolism in Dali's paintings.)  The kids thought the word spoken had been 'crotch', not crutch!  Here's a Dali painting with a crutch.  This painting is one that is discussed in the video. 

When showing work of  famous artists to my students, I have always eliminated anything that I thought potentially inappropriate.  I clipped together pages of books that included nudes so that the kids could not see them.  But sometimes the human body found its way into art projects in ways that were unavoidable. For example, when my 6th graders built these sculptures of  'people in motion' (this was not a surrealism project), it was important to be as accurate as possible to create a realistic look.  So 'boobies' were added as needed with little wads of newspaper and tape, hips were shaped, and so on.  And aren't the results super? 

basic armature structure

adding plaster bandage

  

 And of course, adding paint and embellishment

Anyhow...  I did consider introducing the artist Niki de Saint Phalle to my students, and using her work as inspiration for some projects, and while I adore her work, I decided against it because I was concerned someone might be offended by the overabundance of large colorful breasts.  Here's a sample of her amazing, colorful, joyous work.

And I even edited some nudes out of the children's art books of Mike Venezia.   But lets face it, the truth is, when we get out of the shower, we are all nude, are we not?  So I'm back to the comment written by my reader, about my 'exposing such young souls to any sort of nudity'.  I don't think what I showed them was really that damaging or provocative, or even previously unseen.  What do YOU think is or is not appropriate for art class, and at what age?  Would you show this particular video?  I'd love your opinions, whether or not you agree with mine.  By the way, here are a couple of collages done by my 4th graders based on a  project they saw presented in the Get Surreal video. 

And now I'll end this post, with another nude from nature, shot during a recent kayaking sojourn.

I call this 'Turtle Ballet'

4th graders Get Surreal!

These are the first completed surreal collages made by my 4th graders.
They saw the 1/2 hour video "Get Surreal", produced by the Salvador Dali Museum in Florida. It is available for FREE to educators and is a fun, engaging, and informative production. The kids love the flying mustache! I strongly recommend this video.

The video discusses these characteristics of Surrealism: Dislocation (putting things where they are not usually found), Juxtaposition (putting things next to each other that don't usually belong together), Metamorphosis (changing something into something else), and Symbolism.

Each student was given a 9"x 12" piece of black oaktag. I have a box full of landscape and other images from calendars that they used to create their background environment. The rule was that the black tagboard had to be covered completely, so they often had to piece together images for their background.

I have boxes of old magazines: National Geographic Traveler, Adirondack Life, Ranger Rick, and assorted home and ladies magazines. Students were each given a gallon size Ziploc bag, and all images they clipped were stored in the bag along with their oaktag. I did not put out glue until everyone had plenty of time to collect an assortment of images to use.

We discussed how SILLY is OK, but offensive is not. They were not allowed to use images of underwear, alcohol, or weapons, and could not put things together that would upset or offend someone. We discussed what is appropriate for school, and the kids were so funny, tearing out and discarding images, especially from the ladies magazines, that referenced stuff they thought was "inappropriate". They were quite zealous about this!

I've done this project several times before, and I thought this year's students selected the oddest assortment of images ever. There was so much great stuff there, and they just passed it by for strange little things. But anyhow - I'll show you more when the rest are done next week.

Surreal hallways by grade 5

They're finally DONE. Whew. These "surreal hallways" were made by my 5th graders, a sweet group of kids who unfortunately have trouble following directions, so I'm really glad to see these (mostly) done, so we can embark on a papier-mache project - flying pigs!

We painted the checkerboard halls with watercolor, cut open doors and windows, used magazine images behind them, and finally put floating silhouettes in the hall cut out of foam. I wanted black silhouettes, but the kids were really into using color so I decided to let it go. Here's a batch on the bulletin board.

More Surrealism - 2nd grade landscapes and clocks

The inspiration for this lesson came from a lesson posted here:

http://linesdotsanddoodles.blogspot.com/2010/01/dali-clocks-1st-grade.html

My 2nd graders looked at and discussed Dali's Persistence of Memory. Then we created our own distorted clocks on watercolor paper, outlined with Sharpie and painted with watercolors.

Next we created a simple landscape with 3 wavy lines, and painted by double-dipping 2 colors on our brushes. Then we used a Q-tip to paint some black trees and fences, using size and placement to show depth.

Finally, we cut out our clocks and glued them down, with a little bit of curve.

The Surreal Locker Challenge - grade 6

You never know what you'll find inside!

a few more surreal collages