A self portrait is one of those art projects that is always fun to do with kids. Kids often struggle to portray an accurate likeness of themselves (at least in their opinion), but their personality always shines through.
I did not come up with this lesson all on my own. I saw something similar in an art ed. magazine years ago and adapted it and reused this one many times. In my opinion, that’s a great way to collect a number of quality lessons that work for you and your community.
The students started by created a mixed color background. They spent about two periods mixing tempera paint colors to create individual colors. They could not use any colors straight from the bottle, but needed to experiment to see what they could mix. They could work with a partner to mix colors and then share the resulting paint colors with each other. We had a very basic and quick introduction to color mixing, emphasizing mixing white to make a color lighter (tint) or black to make a color darker (shade.) They could also mix any of the colors available to see the results. Tissue paper pieces were added on some of the backgrounds for added depth and texture.
The faces were made by cutting out the parts from construction paper. A sample and diagram was shown on the board so students could visualize placement and proportion of facial features.
Students had the option of including waving hands or my favorite, the “jazz hands”.
To see more self portraits from years past, visit the archives.
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