Surrealism with eyes

You need:

1. camera
2. drawing sheet A3 size 
3. aquarelle pencils 
4. markers 
5. brush
6. jar with water 
7. scissors and glue 

Surrealists like Dali painted images in a hyper realistic style accompanied often with unexpected surprising or even shocking additions. Surrealists let their imagination run wild and painted dreams.   

In this lesson students will make a surrealistic artwork with eyes. Paul Miró, the Spanish surrealistic artist, painted often eyes in his work.

Eyes are meant to look with,  but how can we use eyes in our imagination? Maybe you can play soccer with them ... Or they are on the shelves of a refrigerator .... What tot think about a bouquet of eye flowers to give your mother...

Each student invents a surreal situation of which he or she is part of, and draws it. On a separate sheet several eyes have to be drawn, coloured in bright coloures with markers. The teacher takes a picture of the child as it sees itself in that situation and prints it. The drawing has to be coloured with aquarell pencils. Use water and a brush to smoothe the colours. Paste the photograph in the drawing and then paste the eyes. 

All arworks made by students of grade 4. 

Flamingo in Art Nouveau

 

Made by students of grade 5

You need:

1. white drawing sheet 
2. metallic gel pens
3. glue and figure scissors
4. coloured construction paper for background

Gaudi House, Barcelona

Art Nouveau, also known as Jugendstil an international style of art, applied art and architecture that was most popular during 1890-1914. It is also known as Modernism in Catalonia - Spain, with its most notable contributions by the architect Antoni Gaudi.

Art Nouveau was applied to everyday objects like jewellery and furniture, but also on fences, balconies and facades. Art Nouveau artists used organic shapes, like plants and birds, eggs and women. The lines express emotion. In Paris you will discover Jugendstil in some accesses to the subway. Gaudi also designed his buildings in this style: elegant whimsical shapes, decorated with mosaic tiles and wrought iron.

Show Jugendstil / Art Nouveau pictures using the digital board. Discuss the features: elegant lines, rounded shapes, often asymmetrical, organic shapes, exuberant.

Outline a saucer on a white drawing sheet and cut it. Draw Art Nouveau shapes and lines using metallic gel pens in three colours.  Paste this drawing on a second sheet of white drawing paper. Draw legs, tail and head of a flamingo bird and decorate these parts also with gel pen. Cut the bird with figure scissors leaving a white edge. Paste the art work on a long piece of coloured paper that matches the colour of the flamingo.

Salvador Dali's mustache

You need:

1. drawing sheet A3 size
2. oil pastel crayons
3. pencil 
4. black marker 
5. pipe cleaner 

More information about Salvador Dalí, see the lesson High legged elephant in the style of Salvador Dali.

Show some surrealistic artworks of Dali and discuss the surreliastic parts of it.  Show The melting clocks. Discuss the shape of the clockes. What happened to these clocks? Are these clocks that you can hang on the wall? Why not? Why do we call this surreal?

Using a step by step method, the students draw a face. I opted for the method of WikiHow. Interchange in this method step 1 and 2 by folding the sheet in four parts and then draw an egg shale according to the measures in the figure below. Then continue following the steps on WikiHow.

This is the face of Dali. Draw some melting clocks around it. Draw also some half ones on the edged of the sheet.

The clocks and face have to remain white. Colour the background with warm colors and the clothes of Dali with cold colours (or vice versa).
Outline the clocks and face with black oil pastel. Use a black marker for the numbers and hands of the clock and the parts of the face. Colour the iris of the eyes with a bright colour.

Pierce two holes under the nose and put a piece of pipe cleaner through them. Bend it into a nice mustache. Sign your artwork with your own name. Put the name Dali with a small mustache anywhere at work.

Artworks made by students of grade 4

Thanks to Anne Farell from Use your coloured pencils who gave me the idea of the pipecleaner mustache!