Surrealist Collage

Surrealists liked to paint as if in a dream world. This is why Surrealism doesn't always make sense. Surrealist paintings even create an unsettling feeling with the viewer, much like dreams do. I've always been haunted by such paintings by the artist Giorgio de Chirico, such as The Mystery and Melancholy of a Street.

The thing just gives me the heebie jeebies. Heh.

I wanted to give my students the opportunity to create wacky, Surrealist-inspired collages, minus the haunting, melancholy feeling. These are elementary students, you know. A good way to find images that can be juxtaposed in an interesting way is to use magazine cut-outs. Finally, all the magazines I have laying around my home that I never want to throw out because you just never know when you're gonna need them have been put to good use.

The cut-outs, along with regular pieces of scrapbooking paper gave this project that authentic randomness that is Surrealism. The collages turned out really cool. The students had a blast going through all of the magazine scraps and reinterpreting them in their collage. Oh, one handy tip is to be mindful of the magazine cut-outs that you allow your students to look through. I didn't just toss stacks of magazines in front of them. I went through each mag, tore out what I thought would be great to use and collected a pile that way. InStyle ads are very suggestive, and you don't want to pollute the minds of the very young, now do we?

• Since you'll be somewhat censoring the ads you are presenting to your class, it'll take you a few days to prepare for this lesson to collect everything you need.
• Some things I collected were giant pics of food, skateboards, animals, interesting backgrounds, make-up ads, random body parts, etc.
• Though the students could create a perfectly good collage comprised of all mag cut-outs, offer pieces of multi-colored collage paper as well.
• I prefer to use good quality glue-sticks when creating a collage. It is just tacky enough to put your images down, but it doesn't make the whole process overly sloppy. I don't recommend Elmer's Glue because the students get carried away with it. Rubber cement is great, as long as the container has a brush inside. It's actually much more archival than a glue stick.
• The collages can be created on poster board, Bristol board, construction paper, whatever paper you have on hand that is sturdy enough to take the weight of the cut-outs and glue. Also, the size is completely up to you and the time frame you have available. In my 45-50 minute-long class, a 9 X 12 is large enough.
• Encourage students to be neat with their cutting skills, taking their cuts all the way down to the edge of their images. It just makes the overall appearance that much nicer.
• The finished collages were so amazing and very humorous! We had a good laugh at some of the random ideas that were generated from this project.

The collage above was created by a 5th grader.

Jim Dine: Watercolor Resist Hearts

Hello, fellow art lovers! A few months have passed. I had a great summer doing absolutely nothing! And now, in the thick of the Fall semester, I've been slammed with schoolwork and projects to keep up with. My art classes have changed somewhat, although I still have quite a few projects I'd like to share. I'm now teaching about the Renaissance era, specifically the great masters.

Can I get a snooze button?

No seriously, after you've studied the Modern Art masters and all the fabulous, visionary, amazing art these artists created, the "Mona Lisa" seems a little plain. However, I understand the importance of learning foundational subjects. And without Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa", we might not have gotten a Picasso "Weeping Woman". So there you have it, this is where I am right now.

I was inspired by this project over at Art Projects for Kids a few months ago. So the students and I delved into studying the artist Jim Dine. He was an artist that found a icon--the heart-- and then explored it for many years, in several different incarnations and mediums. We artists are funny like that. This project requires watercolors, oil pastels and rubber cement.

• Hand out a 9 X 12 sheet of watercolor paper. You are going to need something sturdier than drawing paper as you will be creating a watercolor resist painting and it needs to hold up.
  
• Encourage students to draw a pattern using hearts. They can be repetitive shapes, overlapping, formed in a grid pattern. You may even want to create several heart templates, for those students who need some help with their drawing skills. The templates will provide them with the confidence to lay their design down.
• As usual, encourage students to be neat about their sketches, making sure not to shade with the graphite.
• They should then color with their oil pastels. There is a rule in Mrs. Pearmama's art class: thou shall press down hard when using oil pastels. None of this feather light coloring in my classroom! These are oil pastels, not cheap crayons! Encourage your students to blend their oil pastels and create interesting patterns with their colors.
  
• The students then painted a light watercolor wash over their drawing. At first, they are very reluctant to paint directly over their freshly created oil pastel drawing. But then they discover that the oil pastels resist the watercolor.
• Have all students take a turn by the hair dryer to dry their watercolor washes.
  
• Once they're dry, hand out small bowls of rubber cement. I have a favorite brand, but imagine my surprise when I opened up the 16 oz. can to find that they don't provide a brush attached to the lid like the smaller cans do. That said, you will need to designate a few cheaps brushes that you don't mind throwing away after this project.
• Have your students brush on the clear rubber cement over their drawing, making sure not to leave behind any clumps. Teach them to use flowing strokes.
  
• The rubber cement dries fairly quickly and is slightly stinky. Make sure you have fans blowing and/or windows and doors to your classroom open.
• Lastly, students are to paint another watercolor wash in a contrasting color over the entire paper once again.
• There you have it, a watercolor resist painting a'la Pop artist Jim Dine.

The artwork above was created by a third grader.