The artists of Fauvism did not choose the name themselves; they were labeled les Fauves (French for "the wild beasts") by art critic Louis Vauxcelles after he saw their bold, vibrant paintings at the 1905 Salon d'Automne in Paris.

The name started as an insult when Vauxcelles compared a traditional Renaissance-style sculpture in the room to the surrounding paintings, exclaiming "Donatello chez les fauves" ("Donatello among the wild beasts") because of their intense, non-naturalistic use of color. The artists ultimately embraced the nickname rather than rejecting it.

The students created these artworks with a series of steps. First, they chose their celebrity and inserted a picture of them into a photo editing software. Once the image was inserted, they adjusted the colors to their liking and posterized it to break it down into smaller value shapes. Then these images were printed and they used a trace transfer process to replicate their value shapes onto a canvas. Once their image was fully traced on, they could begin using wild colors to fill in their faces. This resulted in phenomenal masterpieces!