I love the Mexican celebration "Dia de los Muertos" or "Day of the Dead." It happens every year on October 31-November 2 and is the time of year when family and friends gather to remember and pray for loved ones who have died. They build altars to honor the dead, bring favorite food, drinks, and gifts to them to in order to encourage them to visit and hear their prayers and comments. Its the imagery and art that I love - skulls and skeletons (calaveras) in beautiful clothes, colored in bright colors, and adorned with flowers (usually marigolds). Its so graphically rich that I can't help but want to share this art with students!
I brought in a book to share with the students. There are some fantastic children's books about the Day of the Dead. This gave them a little background on the holiday, as well as a glimpse into the art surrounding it. To inspire them, I also brought in a few skulls and other items I have collected.
Designing our own skull art was a perfect opportunity to practice symmetry. We discussed what symmetry means and talked about how the left side of the skull should be a mirror image of the right side. Everyone had a practice sheet to sketch out ideas before we did our real skull.
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| Students sketch their skull designs and practice symmetry. |
Once students had a design sketched out, they were given a silver sharpie to recreate the art on a black piece of paper. This produces a striking contrast and a dramatic final piece of art.
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| Love the silver on black! |
Once the skulls were drawn in sharpie and the completely filled with designs, students could take it a step further and paint a colorful border, add tissue paper "marigolds" (by wrapping squares of tissues around the end of a pencil, dipping it in glue, and pressing it onto the paper), and glue metallic "sequin" shapes to their art for a little extra bling.
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| The finishing touches |
Each skull was as unique and different as the artist that created it. They are each amazing on their own, but really fun to see here all at once. I think we nailed our symmetrical Dia de los Muertos skulls! Muy bien!!
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| BcB DK |
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| IJ AB |
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| BB JV |
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| MC PM . |
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| MK LD . |
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| NB SB |
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| NoB JD |
