Surrealism Art Project, Mystery Drawing Activity

Turn four random ideas into one wonderfully strange artwork with this Surrealism Art Project.
Students randomly select four colour-coded Mystery Cards – one Object, one Animal, one Action and one Place – then combine all four prompts into a single original Surrealist artwork.

With 216 printable Mystery Cards and more than 8 million possible combinations, students can approach the same activity in completely different ways. They might transform an everyday object, change its scale, combine unrelated things, create an impossible situation or place something somewhere completely unexpected.

The resource also introduces students to Surrealism and explores how Surrealist artists transformed familiar objects and ideas into strange, impossible and dreamlike images. An imagination hook inspired by Salvador Dalí’s The Elephants is included, along with a carefully selected list of works by Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, Remedios Varo, Meret Oppenheim and Leonora Carrington.

What’s included:

Introduction to Surrealism and teacher guidance
Surrealist imagination hook
Curated list of Surrealist artworks to explore
Step-by-step project instructions
216 printable Mystery Prompt Cards
54 Object cards – blue
54 Animal cards – red
54 Action cards – green
54 Place cards – yellow
Printable Mystery Card container labels
Surrealist Artwork Entry Form
Student artwork examples
Printable Surrealism display sign
Guidance for adapting the activity to different group sizes
Extension ideas
Link to the Zappy Arts Behind the Scenes story

How the activity works

Each student selects:

1 BLUE Object + 1 RED Animal + 1 GREEN Action + 1 YELLOW Place

Students then find their own creative way to combine all four prompts into one Surrealist artwork. There is no single correct solution. Students are encouraged to experiment with transformation, unusual scale, unexpected combinations, impossible situations and dreamlike ideas.

Materials

No specialist art materials are required. The project can be completed using pencils, coloured pencils, crayons, markers, pastels, watercolour pencils or other drawing materials already available.

The activity is flexible enough to use with an individual student, a small group or a large class. It has been tested with real students in both a small group and a very large art class.

Please note: reproductions of Surrealist artworks are not included because many of the recommended works remain protected by copyright. Artist names, artwork titles, dates and viewing suggestions are provided so the works can be located online, through museum websites, books or other appropriate sources.