Try out these Vik Muniz inspired chocolate syrup paintings to get your students’ creativity flowing with a quick and temporary art lesson.
When my students are in a rut or needing inspiration, I like to throw chocolate syrup paintings their way. I have used this one day artwork as a midterm “exam” grade, a fun first day back from a long break or a getting to you know artwork at the beginning of a new semester. My favorite way to do it is to let students know we are going to use a different material, but not let them know what it is. The element of surprise really helps jumpstart their creativity.
Chocolate Syrup Painting Materials
I also love doing this because it requires very few materials. Chinet plates work best, avoid cheap styrofoam because the syrup bunches up. You can use paper plates as well, but the cheaper ones don’t work as well. In my experience cheaper chocolate syrup doesn’t work as well as Hershey’s.
We use regular brushes to paint with and they clean up surprisingly easily. You can also set out caramel and strawberry syrup for a little color play. We have also experimented with coffee grinds, sugar, hot sauce and pasta.
Artist Vik Muniz
Vik Muniz is a Brazilian artist known for his unconventional materials. He has worked with sugar, spaghetti, chocolate syrup and garbage to name a few. His series Pictures of Garbage and accompanying documentary Wasteland create images out of landfill garbage while also exploring the lives of Brazilians who lived off the landfill. He is a fascinating artist that students respond well to. He is also a great artist to look at when discussing appropriation with students.
The most recent times I have used this activity was with my Advanced Placement students. They are assessed on using experimentation in their artwork, which is surprisingly (or maybe not!) hard to get them to do. I had them pick a design, composition or drawing from their sketchbook they had previously developed so they could revise that with a new material.
Download my free Chocolate Syrup Painting presentation!
You could give your students a theme or a series of images to work from. If you could also use this as an opportunity to take a page out of Vik Muniz’s book and focus on master copies.
When we are done, we photograph and then discard the artwork. It’s a great lesson in temporary art and capturing a moment that does not last forever.
Here are the results of our Vik Muniz inspired chocolate syrup paintings:
