Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Dali: Summer Program Update 3


Today a student proudly held up her drawing of toast flying over some architecturally-unsound cotton candy buildings with vampire bunnies poking their heads out of the windows. "I've never drawn this much in my life," she said and immediately made my day. Another 6th grade girl kept showing everyone the upside down ice-cream-cone-with-belly-button that she created. No one drew the cliche quarter sun with spiky lines for rays in the corner of their paper. This is probably because the only rule in my class is that corner suns are not allowed. Regardless, I count it a success when simple shapes are eliminated and the kooky, creative, frightening stuff that inhabits the minds of children, comes out.

My surrealism assignment - draw a crazy dream you've had, add some animated food, and place them in an incongruous setting - was a hit!

I drew connections between surrealism, Tim Burton's movies, and Alice in Wonderland - and they got it. Surprisingly, as I prepared for and taught the lesson I started appreciating surrealism for the first time! I love when that happens. (That happened with The Catcher in the Rye too.)

Photos of Dali make me smile. He seems like fun.

Side note: Edward from Twilight (Robert Pattinson) is playing a young Dali in a movie called Little Ashes. With an accent. This just seems really wrong to me.

Here are couple contemporary surrealist painters who blow my mind a little bit.
Valadmir Kush

and George Grie

1 comment:

Catherine said...

You've helped me appreciate surrealism a little bit too-- quite an achievement! Would love to see your kids' pics, but the pics you posted were interesting too!