Day of the Dead (dia de los Muertos) Illustration (using vector art)
The student will…
Learn about the geometric concepts like radial patterns and symmetry.
Will learn a variety of Adobe Illustrator tools including the rotate, reflect, pathfinder options, and blend tool.
Introductory Activity
Talk about the history of the Day of the Dead. The Day of the Dead (el Día de los Muertos), is a Mexican holiday where families welcome back the souls of their deceased relatives for a brief reunion that includes food, drink and celebration. the holiday is celebrated each year from October 31- November 2. The roots of the Day of the Dead, celebrated in contemporary Mexico and among those of Mexican heritage in the United States and around the world, go back some 3,000 years. On the Day of the Dead, it’s believed that the border between the spirit world and the real world dissolve. During this brief period, the souls of the dead awaken and return to the living world to feast, drink, dance and play music with their loved ones. In turn, the living family members treat the deceased as honored guests in their celebrations, and leave the deceased’s favorite foods and other offerings at gravesites or on the ofrendas built in their homes. Ofrendas can be decorated with candles, bright marigolds called cempasuchil alongside food like stacks of tortillas and fruit. Sugar skulls, or Calavera, would also be part of the offering as well. Made of sugar and cast into thee form, these products can be given to children or used in the offerings for the deceased relatives in the alters. The sugar skulls are brightly decorated and embellished. They have become a symbol for the holiday.
Students will be using their skills developed in learning Adobe Illustrator (or comparable vector art program). students don’t necessarily need to know the pen tool for this project. They will need to feel comfortable in navigating the program, creating shapes, alter color. etc. You should introduce and model the rotate, reflect, pathfinder options, and blend tools and how to use the offset path feature. They will also need to learn the align feature and how to group objects prior to starting. There is an excellent video in resources where a designer shows hiss audience how to use various tools in Illustrator to create a skull design. He creates quite quickly and masterfully, be sure students know that speed comes with time and practice.
Have the student begin their designs in black and white. You might consider downloading and making available free vector embellishments like flowers and decorative lines, etc. Have students collect resources for ideas of sugar skull images.
Begin designing. When the black and white version is done you can execute in color. You may even opt to talk about color schemes prior to developing the color version. Have colors reflect real sugar skulls.
Day of the Dead illustration ideas
1. Review the background of Dia De Los Muertos in class. Watch video and reflect.
2. Review slideshow with Ms. O’Brien HERE
2. Pratice drawing a skull and face in your sketchbook.
3. Practice the following videos to paint a skull and flowers on practice paper.
4. Sketch out your drawing on final paper.
CRITERIA FOR GRADING
- Must be a human face, (face can be half skeleton or with Dia De Los Muertos Makeup ), Animal, human skeleton, or Skull that has designs covering it.
- Additional space must be filled with at least 7 symbols of life (flowers, birds, animals, trees,leaves etc.)
- No pen on this, must be all paint even for details.
- Face, skull or skeleton must be accurately drawn.
- Minimal blank space ( drawings should fill up your paper)
Student Examples
Learner Goals: Learn how to draw a skeleton, skull, flowers, and lay out a composition in a work of art. Practice the principles of Variety, Balance, Unity, Contrast.
Materials: Pencil, Sketchbook, Sharpie, Visual references, Colored Pencils, Oil Pastels
Historical Background
The Mexican holiday of Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, takes place over the first two days of November. Its origins are a mixture of Native American traditions and a set of Catholic holidays.
While the holiday’s observances include spending time in cemeteries, making shrines to the dead, and displaying artistic representations of skulls and skeletons, the occasion is festive, rather than morbid. Death isn’t seen as the end of one’s life, but as a natural part of the life cycle; the dead continue to exist much as they did in their lives, and come back to visit the living every year.
Aztec origins
The names of two consecutive twenty-day months on the Aztec calendar, Miccailhuitomi and Miccailhuitl, can be translated as “Feast of the Little Dead Ones” and “Feast of the Adult Dead.” Put together, they appear to have formed one long celebration of the dead, moving from those who died as children to those who died when they were older.
The Spanish Imposition
In the early 1500s, Spanish conquistadors, led by Hernando Cortéz , conquered the Aztec Empire , taking over the area we now know as Mexico . They immediately set about trying to convert the native population to Catholicism, for both religious and political reasons.
Among the practices introduced by Spanish missionaries were All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day , taking place on November 1 and 2, respectively. The conquered Native Americans took the opportunity to incorporate their own traditions for honoring the dead into these two days. The resulting holiday is a unique hybrid of the two.
Welcoming the Dead
It is generally believed that the souls of one’s family return home to join in the Day of the Dead festivities. First those who died in infancy come home, then the older children, and finally those who died once they’d reached adulthood. Families set up altars (or ofrendas ) in their homes, festively decorated in bright colors and laden with the favorite foods of their dead. Typically, the altars contain photographs of the dead, representations of things they liked, and items representing the four elements: candles for fire, drinks for water, fruit for earth, and fluttering tissue-paper decorations for wind. The dead take in the essence of the food, which will later be eaten by the living.
In some areas, families go to the graveyard to celebrate through the night. They clean and decorate the graves, sometimes setting up ofrendas on the gravestones, as bells are rung.
