Session 02: A DALI INSPIRED WORKSHOP
The Wonderful, Wacky World of Melting Time & Dreamy Landscapes: A Dali-Inspired Workshop
Step into a surreal adventure where time melts and imagination takes center stage! In this fun, three-week workshop, young artists will create their own melting clocks and dreamy landscapes inspired by Salvador Dali’s The Persistence of Memory. They’ll explore watercolor washes, acrylic shading, and collage techniques, all while learning about perspective, depth, and surrealism. Let your creativity run wild and bring your dreamlike worlds to life!
4:00-5:00 and 5:15-6:15
June 27
July 4 skip
July 11
July 18
Materials included
Ages 6-12
The Wonderful, Wacky World of Melting Time & Dreamy Landscapes: A Dali-Inspired Workshop
Step into a surreal adventure where time melts and imagination takes center stage! In this fun, three-week workshop, young artists will create their own melting clocks and dreamy landscapes inspired by Salvador Dali’s The Persistence of Memory. They’ll explore watercolor washes, acrylic shading, and collage techniques, all while learning about perspective, depth, and surrealism. Let your creativity run wild and bring your dreamlike worlds to life!
4:00-5:00 and 5:15-6:15
June 27
July 4 skip
July 11
July 18
Materials included
Ages 6-12
The Wonderful, Wacky World of Melting Time & Dreamy Landscapes: A Dali-Inspired Workshop
Step into a surreal adventure where time melts and imagination takes center stage! In this fun, three-week workshop, young artists will create their own melting clocks and dreamy landscapes inspired by Salvador Dali’s The Persistence of Memory. They’ll explore watercolor washes, acrylic shading, and collage techniques, all while learning about perspective, depth, and surrealism. Let your creativity run wild and bring your dreamlike worlds to life!
4:00-5:00 and 5:15-6:15
June 27
July 4 skip
July 11
July 18
Materials included
Ages 6-12
FUL CLASS DESCRIPTION
Step into a wacky, wonderful world where time melts away and the heat of summer makes room for endless fun. In this surrealistic adventure, time is no longer a limit — it’s a canvas for creativity!
Inspired by Salvador Dali’s iconic painting The Persistence of Memory (on view at MoMA!), this three-week, hands-on workshop invites young artists to dive into the playful, dreamlike, topsy-turvy world of surrealism as they create their very own melting clock landscapes.
We’ll begin with the backgrounds, using soft, translucent watercolor washes to build luminous skies and stretch melting horizons, learning foundational techniques like vanishing points, perspective, and the illusion of depth. Then comes contrast! Using opaque acrylics, students will bring the foreground into focus, shading and forming tree silhouettes while exploring light, form, and how to make objects feel real in imagined spaces.
Next up: clocks! Students will design their own “melting timepieces” with watercolor paper and Sharpies — realistic in shape, wildly abstract in design, and completely personalized. Maybe even a surprise splash of gold leaf for a little surreal sparkle!
This is where the magic of realism meets the freedom of surrealism. With Dali as our guide — a famously freaky and fantastical artist who marched to the beat of his own (melting) drum — we’ll explore time, space, and wild imagination.
As students collage their clocks and surreal elements into dreamy, otherworldly landscapes, they’ll add whimsical touches that reflect their own personalities and interests. Dali loved ants and sprinkled them about his timepieces — but your artist might prefer fireflies, ladybugs, grasshoppers, or even a butterfly or two. Nature’s little friends might make a special appearance in these imaginative summer scenes.
The Magic Behind the Making: Highlights & Takeaways
A creative mix of watercolor, acrylic, drawing, and collage
Core concepts like shading, foreshortening, foreground/background, and spatial illusion
Playful exploration of symbolism, storytelling, and world-buildingAn inspiring look at surrealism and the bold, limitless imagination of Salvador Dali
By the end of the workshop, students will have created their own surreal landscape — equal parts weird, whimsical, and totally wonderful. It’s the perfect journey for young artists ready to bend the rules of time and art, and let their creativity run wild.
Let’s get wacky. Let’s get wonderful. Let’s melt some clocks.