Woman's History Month- Mary Blair's Castle Design

In honor of Women’s History Month,  we focused on the brilliant work of Mary Blair, the first woman hired by Disney in the 1940s.  We started our journey in Art class. Students studied the work of Mary Blair and drew out a castle inspired by her work. Students examine the unique way she used color, shapes, and patterns in her designs. Such as the design of Alice and Wonderland, Peter Pan, and the Disney of It’s a Small World After All ride in Disney World. After comparing different designs from Mary Blair, students had a chance to design their castle inspired by Mary Blair's on paper.  

 

We continued our learning journey by learning more about her career with Disney as a designer and animator. Continuing to look at Blair's work and analyze the bold color schemes, shapes, and unique patterns. 

Students took to Keynote to design a Mary Blair-inspired castle again, using the shapes library and animation. Students created their own Mary Blair-inspired castles with vibrant colors, shapes, and patterns, all using unique shapes in the shape library. Students then animated their castles to bring them to life! Finally, students researched Mary Blair and added a few essential facts about her life to tie the whole project back to the incredible Mary Blair.

Pro Tip: Create the castle using copy and paste of basic shapes such as squares, rectangles, triangles, etc. Then use shapes to create patterns, select all, group together, then copy and paste similar patterns throughout the design. Change the color of the pattern to increate interest and add a bit of Mary Blair's Flare!