Monochromatic Picasso Portraits

Students learned how to make tints and shades of one color using white and black.  We started this lesson with a blind contour self portrait drawing.  Some students chose to use the blind contour for the monochromatic painting to have a more abstract style work of art.

4th grade faux taxidermy paper mache creatures

5th grade Soft Sculptures

Stray Sock Sculptures 

This was a really fun project that integrated recycling, literacy, photography, sewing, sculpture and technology to create 3D creatures. Students learned various sewing stitches and they also learned how to sew on a button. Kids started by drawing thumbnail sketches and chose on creature to transform into a 3D work of art. They used stray socks and found buttons to be environmentally friendly.  

5th Grade Surrealism Collages

Students explored dreams and reality with Surrealism. They studied the surrealism movement; a period in art history in which artists tried to access the creativity of the unconscious mind.  Artists including Rene Magritte, Kay Sage, Hannah Hoch, and Salvador Dali created many works that blurred the line between dreams and reality. To start of the unit on surrealism students participated in the surrealist game called Exquisite Corpse, in which a creature is drawn collaboratively. It's a great game to play with the family at home, look it up or ask a 5th grader how to play it.

Students then investigated the Surrealist technique of "seeing into" or "Paranoiac Critical Method". This exercise was coined by Salvador Dali and is all about looking at things in a new way. Students delved next into the surrealist technique of collage. Students began with a magazine background and had the challenge of altering an image and thus creating a new work of art.

5th grade Exquisite Corpse

We embarked on our study of surrealism with a mini lesson on the Exquisite corpse, also known as exquisite cadaver (from the original French term cadavre exquis) or rotating corpse, is a method by which a collection of words or images is collectively assembled. Each collaborator adds to a composition in sequence, either by following a rule or by being allowed to see only the end of what the previous person contributed.The technique was invented by surrealists and is similar to an old parlor game called consequences in which players write in turn on a sheet of paper, fold it to conceal part of the writing, and then pass it to the next player for a further contribution.

We had so much fun with this activity. Here is what resulted.