Summit Academy»Melanie Castellese

For the month of September, students will be learning about Mexico and the Dia de los Muertos, which is a holiday similar to Halloween. Both holidays have images of skulls and skeletons, but those associated with Dia de los Muertos are brightly colored, have lots of patterns, and are bright and cheerful.

For their project, students will be creating a calacas, or skeleton figure. They will be using aluminum foil to build up their form. Once a stick figure is made out of foil, it will be stapled onto a base of cardboard. Students will then build up the form with more foil until it takes on the appearance of a body and stands upright.

Students will then use plaster gauze to create a hard coating for the sculpture. The gauze is cut into strips and dipped into water. This is put on top of the foil. Once dry, it will be ready to decorate. Students will paint their work using acrylic paint to represent a skeletal figure that represents Dia de los Muertos. It should be brightly colored, have patterns, be comical or joyful, and depicted wearing expensive clothese to truly reprsent the holiday.

Parents:

This will be a messy project. I provide aprons and smocks for my students in art class, but paint can still get on clothes. Students may want to wear older uniform clothes on art day, or bring an extra shirt in case of spills.

This project will be using a lot of aluminum foil. If you would like to donate a roll to the art room, that would be greatly appreciated. Masking tape will also be needed to help keep our sculptures attached to their base.

Here is an example created by me, Mrs. Castellese!

calacas

This is what the skeleton figures will look like when they are aluminum foil placed on cardboard. I have used masking tape to help hold my piece together.

The next step will be to cover my piece with plaster.

Student Gallery:

Here are some student works in progress. Students are working on covering their foil figures with plaster right now. Painting is the next step.