Recreating Famous Paintings and Greetings From the United Kingdom

It's been a while since I posted. It's actually been a while since I taught a class - two months in fact.

I am actually in the UK at the moment and will be for a few months before returning to my job in Australia. It's a long story but if any teachers are reading this in the UK - let's do lunch! I'm so bored and no one will give me a job over here. So let's make it a cheap lunch because I'm also broke. On a positive note I've been bumming around in galleries in London about once a week which has been amazing!

At the Tate Modern with one of my favourite paintings.

Anyhow - I thought I'd post some lovely drawings some grade 4 and 5 students did at the end of last year as part of an art history assignment I set. They had to research a famous painter and part of the assignment asked them to recreate one of that artist's most well known paintings.

Cezanne:

 

Klimt: 

 

 

Matisse:

 

 Picasso:

 

Van Gogh:

Kahlo:

Dali: The Man of Many Moustaches

 

Can anyone tell me why moustaches are so in right now? Not just real ones but basically anything with a curly moustache on it. If you haven't noticed this phenomenon, you just need to type in the word 'moustache' (or 'mustache' if you're American) into the search bar of Pinterest to see cushions, mugs, t-shirts, necklaces etc printed with moustaches. Here is also a funny blog post about the inexplicable trend of moustaches on sticks at weddings, which I have also seen a lot of!

Anyhow, I am unintentionally upholding this trend with my latest Salvador Dali lesson. 

Spanish Surrealist painter Salvador Dali (1904-1989) was as well known for his strange paintings as for his strange attention seeking behaviour and eccentric look. I think he is probably largely responsible for the stereotype that all artists have long curly moustaches.  As a bit of fun for my students who have been studying Dali this term I printed out many images of Dali and his famous moustache. From these they created these Dali portraits, complete with pipe cleaner moustache which could be sculpted into any wild creation. This was a really fun lesson and I love the results from students of all ability levels.

 

Dali Melting Clocks

These sculptures are based on the melting clocks in Spanish Surrealist Savador Dali's (1904 -1989) 1931 painting 'The Persistence of Memory'. (pictured below)

Years ago, I stumbled upon an exhibition of Dali's sculptural works whilst in Europe.The exhibition included sculptural versions of his melted clocks (pictured below).

I thought I would try something like this with my grade 5/6 class who are studying Salvador Dali this term. You can also see this sort of lesson here on Artsonia.

Image from www.artquotes.net.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Image from www.operagallery.com

We rolled out clay, cut out an imperfect oval shape and then decorated it with a border, clock hands, a winder and engraved numbers into the face. I then had the students press their clay into a plastic bowl, or drape it over the bowl so it would dry in a melted looking shape. We also added a small hole in the top for a hanging device.

Once fired, students painted their melted clocks in colours of their choice and applied a clear varnish.