SaharaTulip: 3rd Grade Art Lesson: Embellished Faces Inspired by Marita Dingus

3rd Grade Art: Embellished Faces Inspired by Marita Dingus by A Crafty Arab

Today in our art room we created embellished faces inspired by the artist Marita Dingus.

Since this lesson was going to be kinetic and involved moving parts, I asked for backup from my community. I'm so filled with gratitude for those who took time out of their day to come out to be with the kids.

D did a great job (wo)maning the paper table and helping all the kids that wanted to include paper embellishments on their faces.

3rd Grade Art: Embellished Faces Inspired by Marita Dingus by A Crafty Arab

I also have wonderful fellow art docents who heard my call for help and came in to be extra hands.

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After a quick run-through of our power point from last time, I showed the kids a Marita Dingus artwork that is in our City Hall. She created it in 2006 as part of the Volunteer Arts Award. It is called Floating through Life and has a photo of me as a child, taken in Libya. I was serving on the city art board at the time the piece was commissioned and a group of us anonymously sent Marita photos of ourselves as children as requested. She picked my photo and I'm not sure why, but it's pretty cool that a part of my past has been commemorated from my birth hometown to my adopted hometown.

Floating Through Life by Marita Dingus

Since the kids were attaching their discarded materials with wire, ribbon and glue, I was worried the paper would tear once the photo piece was hung. Earlier in the day I had made photo copies of all the children's photos, along with the teacher of course, and my wonderful volunteers mounted them on thicker paper.

3rd Grade Art: Embellished Faces Inspired by Marita Dingus by A Crafty Arab

I got lucky earlier in the day when I was able to pick up some lanyard hooks to attach to the top of the faces. I was trying to figure out how to make the faces kinetic, since Marita loves movement in her art, and an angel from my Facebook Buy Nothing group posted some for free. What a save!! I am so grateful for the community that is raising these kids.

After a few pointers on how to attached their discarded materials to their baby faces, we let them get to work. Here are a few of the masterpieces.