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Día de los Muertos. Day of the Dead. What is Day of the Dead?. Day of the Dead is celebrated in Mexico and in certain parts of the United States and Latin America. The holiday focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and family members who have died.
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Día de los Muertos Day of the Dead
What is Day of the Dead? • Day of the Dead is celebrated in Mexico and in certain parts of the United States and Latin America. • The holiday focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and family members who have died. • The celebration occurs on November 1st and 2nd in connection with the Catholic holidays of All Saints' Day (November 1) and All Souls' Day (November 2).
How do people celebrate? • People visit the cemetery where their loved ones are buried. • They decorate gravesites and homes with marigold flowers and candles • The candles help to lead the souls of the dead back to their families.
How do people celebrate? • Toys are brought for dead children and food and liquor for adults. • Celebrators sit on picnic blankets next to gravesites and eat the favorite food of their loved ones.
How do people celebrate? • Families build altars in their homes, dedicating them to the dead. • They surround these altars with flowers, food and pictures of the deceased. They light candles and place them next to the altar.
How do people celebrate? • People don wooden skull masks called calacas and dance in honor of their deceased relatives. The wooden skulls are also placed on altars that are dedicated to the dead. • A relative or friend eats sugar skulls made with the names of the deceased on the forehead as tribute.
Day of the Dead Traditional Art Work, Crafts, and Decorations
What are Sugar Skulls? • Called "calaveras de azúcar" in Spanish, these sugary sweets are sold everywhere on the days and weeks leading up to Day of the Dead. • Market stalls are lined with rows and rows of colorful skulls, created from sugar and decorated with multi-colored icing, shiny foil, sequins and glitter.
Sugar Skulls • These festive treats are also made at home. Sugar skulls are given as gifts to both the living and the dead, often with the name of the recipient written on the skull's forehead in icing. • When they are offered to the dead, they are placed lovingly on an altar for the deceased along with other ofrenda, such as the person's favorite foods and drinks when they were alive.
Sugar Skulls • Keeping with the true spirit of Day of the Dead, sugar skulls are not creepy or morbid. • Instead, they are happy, vibrant candies that are often smiling or laughing. The bright colors and sparkly decorations on the sugar skulls are cheerful enough to clear away any fear or concern about what they stand for.
Sugar Skulls • There is a lot of room for creativity when it comes to making and decorating sugar skulls. • To start with, designs and patterns are added with icing made of eye-popping colors like bright yellow, hot pink, neon blue, vivid orange and glowing green in various combinations.
Sugar Skulls • They can be decorated with glitter, beads, rhinestones, feathers, and anything else that can stick to the icing.
How can we create sculptures that relate? • Take inspiration from some of the images shown • Create a closed form pinch pot • Shape the closed form pinch pot into the desired shape of a skull (human or animal) • Carve in designs that are reminiscent of Day of the Dead
But what is a closed form pinch pot? • Good question! • A closed form pinch pot is two pinch pots scored and slipped together to create a hollow form • Remember a hollow sculpture will explode in the kiln • YOU MUST HAVE 1 HOLE FOR AIR TO ESCAPE.
Today • Take a skull handout • Using colored pencil (and Sharpie Marker) create a design. Use this as inspiration for your project. • Think about making intricate, thoughtful, and creative designs.
