Monday, January 23, 2012

Surreal Settings: 4th grade collage

This is a fun lesson for introducing the concepts of Surrealism.  We looked at works by Rene Magritte and Salvador Dali and found elements that both artists use: symbolism, floating objects, and real objects combined in a not-so-real way.  We started with a photocopy of a famous place, hand-colored it, and added magazine photos.  This year, one class who had a little more time than the others (due to holidays and other unavoidable interruptions) tried it three-dimensionally - we popped the shapes up to create a relief in a box lid - it was really fun!  Craftsmanship is super important here - our cutting and gluing skills need to be on point to create these illusions. 


   
Dali

Magritte












7 comments:

  1. This is great! I do something similar with my high school photo classes to teach about back/mid/foreground, also rule of thirds. Love these, so inventive!

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  2. Oh, I LOVE this project!!!

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  3. My 4th graders are also currently doing surreal collages - they'll be done later next week. We are using all magazine and calendar images - no drawing. We began by spending one art class watching the fabulous video Get Surreal - it reviews the terms juxtaposition, dislocation, transformation, and symbols in a way the kids won't soon forget - it is a VERY wacky movie.

    My 6th graders are also doing something surreal right now - another proof that we art teachers have parallel brains!

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  4. Beautiful artwork from your students.
    I love the hand with the pencil.

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  5. These are excellent. I have done projects with Surrealism in the past, but I really like giving them a picture of a famous place. Thanks also to Phyl for the video suggestion.

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  6. Just did this today with a bunch of 10-year-old Webelos scouts as part of their artist badge--they had a blast! My post os here: http://createartwithme.blogspot.com/2014/03/surrealist-collages-with-scouts.html
    Thanks for posting such a fun and accessible project! Mrs. P

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