Monday, February 25, 2013

Dali Portraits

I laughed out loud when I saw this project on There's a Dragon in my Art Room. How great are the expressions and the mustaches on the portraits and photos alike!?

I used two(ish) days to do this project with my second graders. On the first day, we had to add gloss to our Pinch Pots, and I knew that doing that as well as introducing and attempting to complete this new project was too much. So, on the first day, we finished our pots, then discussed Salvador Dali and his wild ways. The kids really liked his Surrealist paintings and LOVED his funky mustache! Also, I'm pretty sure some of my students will be asking for a pet ocelot.

As each kid finished their pot, they began sketching portraits. We talked briefly about facial proportions as well as facial expressions. Admittedly, some of the sketches made me think that these may not turn out, but on we forged.

On the second day, kiddos drew their Dali portraits with black crayon. And to my relief, those black crayons were like magic wands, drawing beautifully expressive Dali-esque portraits on each page! The drawings were cut out and glued onto the 9 x 12" colored paper of choice, given a pipe cleaner mustache, and sent on their way!







And of course, we made paper mustaches of our own. The whole thing was a BIG hit with the kiddos! And I laughed audibly for the duration of the time it took me to hang them up. So now people think I'm even nuttier than they did before. Oh well.

Happy Monday, all!

2 comments :

  1. Thanks for the shout-out! That post of mine keeps reappearing on Pinterest, so when I saw this post of yours come up on my reader, at first I thought it was my post, because the artwork looks so similar! It is such a fun lesson, and kids adore learning about wacky Dali, don't they?! I'm glad it was as successful (and fun) for you as it was for me.

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    1. Thank you for the fabulous idea--portrait drawing can be like pulling teeth sometimes, but the mustaches really made it fun for everyone. When we started sketching, I thought, oh my heavens, how did Phyl get her kids to make theirs look so good?, 'cause some of the sketches were ROUGH! Something really clicked on Day 2, thank goodness! I need to stock up on black pipe cleaners--if you look closely, you can see that I ran out and had to resort to dark brown and even wine-colored, ha!

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