Surrealist Collage

I found this idea on a fellow blogger's post and loved the potential.  Surrealism is my favorite type of art and I get really excited and enthused to talk about so I new that this was going to be one of those projects that the kids were going to get excited about as well.  I put together a really great compilation of all different types of surrealist artists and artworks.  I tried to cover a few different types of medium such as painting, photography, sculpture, and collage.  I was a little worried that when the students saw the surrealist art they might not get it or understand why someone would make something from their subconscious if they didn't understand exactly what they were making.  There was some of this going on but the students held a great discussion, especially when I talked about Dada and put up the good ole Marcel Duchamp Urinal.  We discussed whether this was art for about 10 minutes in each class and all of the kids had something to say.  LOVED LOVED LOVED the great talks we had about art.  They also really enjoyed the paintings of Salvador Dali, Vladimir Kush, and Rene Magritte.  I showed some of Scott Mutter's photography and that was very well received too.

After the discussion and determining a basic definition as to what Surrealism is, I explained to students what collage was and how it truly lends itself to creating realistic and fun surreal images.  I demonstrated to the students some different ways to create something that was surreal.  We talked about putting animals heads on human bodies and the likewise, and how this was indeed surreal but that I wanted them to try to go beyond that and make something unique and creative.  The students worked very hard on these and it was really fun seeing the progression of their ideas and how inspired they became by the material and images they found.