Salvador Dali

Last week we did charcoal portraits of Surrealist artist, Salvador Dali, equally famous for both his unique paintings and his flamboyant, eccentric personality. We looked at his most famous painting, Persistence of Memory. But, our main focus was on Dali’s expressive face and mustache.

We discussed facial proportions, and students were given a variety of photos of Dali to draw from. We started drawing lightly with a charcoal pencil and then switched to compressed charcoal for the darkest areas. Students used their fingers to add shadows on the face.

I wasn’t sure how my youngest students would do with this project. It is challenging. They did great. Some of these were done by 5 and 6 yr olds! My oldest group is still working on theirs, so I will have to share those next week.