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Miro Monsters

Miro Monsters

Create playful monsters by combining shapes, lines and bold colors like the Surreal artist, Joan Miro.

Lesson Plan

Supplies Needed

Gather all the supplies needed to bring your craft ideas to life! From paints and markers to glue and scissors, our crafts section has everything to spark creativity and make every project truly special.

Steps

  • Step 1

    Joan Miro was a Spanish Surrealist painter and sculptor. Surrealism was an art movement founded in 1924 to emphasize the power of the imagination.

  • Step 2

    Challenge students to compare and contrast various paintings of Miro such as, “Figures and Dog in Front of the Sun-1947”, “Meloncholic Singer”, “Upside-Down Figures”, “Constellations-1940“. Discuss his style and use of line, shapes, color and subject matter.

  • Step 3

    After critiquing Miro’s work, have students combine elements from Miro’s art to create their own “Miro Monster”. Use a black Crayola Erasable Colored Pencil to draw a contour line drawing. Encourage students to draw large and fill the entire paper with the monster surrounded by shapes and lines.

  • Step 4

    Next, color with a variety of Crayola Markers such as: Washable Classic Markers, Ultra-Clean Color Max Washable Markers and Flourescent Markers. Students should use contrasting colors next to each other for a brighter result. Once drawing is colored in, go over the original black colored pencil with a black marker. This will reduce smearing of the colors.

  • Step 5

    Display these zany Miro monster drawings on bulletin boards in the school.

Standards

LA: Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade level topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.

LA: Ask and answer questions about information from a speaker, offering appropriate elaboration and detail.

MA: Draw and identify lines and angles, and classify shapes by properties of their lines and angles.

MA: Reason with shapes and their attributes.

VA: Collaboratively brainstorm multiple approaches to an art or design problem.

VA: Categorize artwork based on a theme or concept for an exhibit.

VA: Use observation and investigation to make a work of art.

VA: Interpret art by analyzing use of media to create subject matter, characteristics of form, and mood.

Adaptations

In Salvador Dali’s painting, “The Persistence of Memory”, clocks are melted over a dessert-like landscape creating an eerie somber mood. Have your students create a surreal image in the Dali style. Using Crayola Erasable Colored Pencils have students create a bizarre environment with an unexpected object melting over the surfaces.

Joan Miro made three dimensional sculpture as well as paintings. Show students some examples of his sculptures “Personnage-1967” and “Projet pur un monument-1972”. Use Crayola Model Magic to make three dimensional silly, colorful monsters.